The Depths

by Catriona King

  He scribbled up ‘Arthur Norris’.

  “This is the name of the man who paid Rio Reynolds to lie. Norris was encountered by us in the offices of the Rownton newspaper editor and later ID-ed by Ms Reynolds outside the nick. Norris was obviously on his way to the editor to complain about the interview not going into print. He refused to talk to us so he’s at High Street now waiting to be re-interviewed.”

  He wrote up ‘Jessica Thwaite’.

  “Then, while we were driving back up, a woman calling herself by this name phoned Rownton nick looking for Norris. She left a fake southern contact number, but we’re following her up-”

  Davy held up his smart-pad. “I’ve got something on that.”

  Another slide appeared on the screen.

  “OK, long st...story short. Grace was examining Arthur Norris’ phone about an hour ago and she found some answerphone messages and a number saved under something called S.W.M.B.O.”

  Craig and Liam smiled simultaneously.

  “You know what it means, chief?”

  “It’s an acronym for ‘she who must be obeyed’ which tells us a lot about Norris’ view of their relationship.”

  Ryan nodded. “Some woman was yelling at Norris on the phone in the editor’s office too. It has to have been her.”

  Davy nodded. “That makes sense, because while Grace was w...working on the phone it rang and the acronym appeared. This is the number behind it.”

  A series of digits appeared on the screen.

  “It’s an Irish mobile number but not the fake one that the woman called Jessica Thwaite gave. Unfortunately it’s a pay-as-you-go number, although we’ll dig into Norris’ phone and see if something else connects. Grace is doing a data dump and some other checks now.” He turned to Aidan. “While I’m on phones. Is there any chance Derek Morrow’s family will give permission to check his phones and computers?”

  The D.C.I. thought for a moment and then gave a nod. “I don’t see why not. I’m sure they’d like real answers as to why he killed himself.”

  Craig sounded a warning note. “They might not like what we find, Aidan, so get them to sign a waiver.” He exchanged a wary look with his deputy as the analyst went on.

  “Grace said that when the phone rang she answered it but said nothing, and a w...woman on the other end, the same voice that had left the messages, started ranting.”

  “About?”

  “Arthur Norris.” He read from his smart-pad. “Her exact words were, ‘ARTHUR! WHERE THE FUCK HAVE YOU BEEN? I’ve been calling you all sodding day! There was nothing in the paper and that stupid bimbo didn’t go on the radio, so you must have been...’ That’s when she stopped talking. Grace still said nothing and after a few s...secs the woman gasped, said, ‘Cops!’ and cut the call. I have it all on tape if anyone fancies a listen.”

  Liam gave a slow whistle.

  “Bloody Hell. Old Arthur’s working for one angry lady, and she’d obviously ordered him to Rownton to find out why the girl hadn’t done her job. When S.W.M.B.O. couldn’t get hold of him, because we had him, she left messages and then tried Rownton nick calling herself Jessica Thwaite. That ‘Cops’ and hanging up means she was definitely up to no good, boss.”

  Craig nodded. “Agreed. Anyone who was really concerned about a missing friend would have stayed on to ask how he was. OK,” he retrieved his marker, “that leaves us with, who is this woman and what sort of no good is she up to? What’s Arthur Norris’ role in everything, and what if any are the links between this woman, Norris, Derek Morrow and Stuart Kincaid’s death?”

  As he was scribbling the points on the board something suddenly occurred to him and he turned back urgently to Aidan.

  “Tell me again what was in Morrow’s envelopes.”

  “Suicide note, bank account details, copy of his Will and stuff about his funeral.”

  “No insurance details?”

  “Well, the wife probably has the house stuff and-”

  Liam’s jaw dropped as he realised that Craig was on to something.

  “Not house insurance, life insurance. Didn’t Morrow leave anything about that? It’s one of the first bits of info I’d leave for my widow.”

  Aidan looked confused. “No. Well, I mean, it wasn’t mentioned.”

  Craig turned to his lead analyst. “Davy, I need to know exactly what was in those letters and the contents of Morrow’s bank accounts too. If he didn’t leave details of his life insurance policy it may be because he didn’t have one...”

  Liam finished the thought. “Because there’s no point having life insurance when suicide never pays out. Morrow must always have known he might need a quick exit, boss.”

  Craig nodded dolefully. “But actually planning for suicide, Liam, that’s desperation... What sort of trouble had this man got himself in?”

  The question would remain rhetorical until they had more information, so when after a moment Craig noticed his D.S. eager to speak he waved him on.

  “Blaine Westbury, chief.”

  Craig added the name to the board. “Go on.”

  “Well, we’d only got general stuff on him, like he’d never collected his inheritance and he was a bad lad, until we interviewed Biddy Evans, the ex-post-mistress. She confirmed that she’d met Stuart Kincaid twice and on both occasions he was alone. Once in twenty-sixteen when he showed her a picture of Bella and asked about her but Mrs Evans said she hadn’t seen the girl, and again last winter when Kincaid came to the village and dropped in just to say hello. They talked about the quarry and the Westburys too and Kincaid took her for afternoon tea at hotel in Omagh.”

  “Sounds like a nice man.” Craig finished scribbling note beside Westbury’s name and turned around. “So what did Mrs Evans say about Blaine Westbury?”

  “Well, she didn’t like him, that’s for sure. Said Edgar was nice but Blaine had been a bad lot since he was a kid. But when we asked when she’d last seen him, expecting her to say at the parents’ funeral in twenty-fifteen, she said she’d seen him in the fields behind her house one morning last winter. In November, so that fits with when Kincaid’s phone died and the time the Doc here said he must have died.”

  Craig’s eyes widened. Had they found the name of Stuart Kincaid’s murderer? Blaine Westbury?

  His tone became intense. “Details, Ryan.”

  “OK, well, Mrs Evans said she saw Blaine running across the fields behind her house towards the village one morning in November, and the direction he was coming from was where the quarry is. It’s just behind the hills at the end of those fields. She said Blaine was wearing normal clothes, a shirt and jeans, so he wasn’t out jogging or anything and she didn’t see him again him after that. No-one else seems to have known that he was there. We showed his photo to everyone we spoke to and there was nothing.”

  He pulled a face.

  “What’s the problem?”

  “Well, apparently Mrs Evans has slight dementia, chief, so I’m not sure how she’d stand up as a witness. But honestly she was as sharp as a tack when we talked to her, so if she says that she saw Blaine I’d say she definitely did.”

  A quick nod from Aidan to say that he concurred and Craig wrote the information up on the board, then he sketched an impromptu Westbury/Kincaid family tree alongside that he knew Davy would soon turn into a slide.

  “OK. Let’s dig deeper on Blaine Westbury tomorrow. I’ll need everything about him, bank accounts, travel, down to his height and build. To have drowned Stuart Kincaid he must have been stronger and taller than him.”

  He glanced at the clock. It was ten-past-seven and the mothers were arriving at the apartment at nine. Just enough time to finish the reports and have his promised pint with John, before heading home to two hours of property hell.

  He turned to his analysts to find them conferring over something on Ash’s smart-pad. It looked too important to break up, but there was a beer calling his name so he moved on to his best friend.

  “John. Anything from you or Des
?”

  The pathologist had spotted Craig’s covert look at the clock and was hearing the siren call of alcohol as well, so he inhaled deeply and summarised in one breath.

  “Stuart Kincaid was drowned by force from behind by a tall, strong man gripping his shoulders and pushing him beneath the water, and his stomach contents and blood analysis were normal, and Derek Morrow blew off his own head with a long barrelled revolver.”

  The sentence ended in a gasp and a round of applause from Liam, who also decided to use the report as an example of how it should be done.

  “OK now, the rest of you, listen and learn. That, right there, is the way to deliver information. Straight to the point and short. None of your meandering ‘I asked the prisoner and then he said to me’ shit, and no interruptions for jokes. OK? Short and sweet in future.”

  Since he was easily the most divertible member of the team Craig was hoping that he’d at least have the decency to laugh, but the D.C.I.’s deadpan expression said that personal insight wasn’t his thing so it was left to his boss to point out the facts.

  “This from the man who makes War and Peace seem short!”

  “I do not!”

  Craig just rolled his eyes, said, “Thanks for that, John” and turned to his still conferring analysts.

  “Is there anything that either of you would like to share with us? Pithily for Liam’s sake, of course.”

  Ash jumped to his feet and commandeered the screen, exchanging Davy’s blue and yellow slides for his waterfall themed own.

  “So...I told the chief some of this earlier, but there’s more now on Bella Westbury. I searched using age, colouring and the rest, and narrowed it to fifteen children travelling from any of our designated departure points in the days after her abduction in twenty-fifteen, and I’m working on pulling all of the passports they travelled on-”

  Craig cut in. “Any joy yet from the embassies and airlines?”

  “Yep. I got hold of seven of the passport photos and eliminated them. Not Bella. Like I said earlier I’m having a bit of an issue with the Russian and Venezuelan travellers but Davy’s got onto all the intelligence agencies so we’re waiting for them to get back.”

  Remembering something, Craig turned to his deputy. “Liam, remind me we need to see Ray Barrett in the morning.”

  “We need to see Ray Barrett in the morning.”

  It earned him a roll of the eyes. “I meant remind me tomorrow, but you knew that already.”

  The response was a winsome smile.

  “Continue, Ash.”

  The analyst displayed an image of the back of a child’s left hand, the significance of which no-one but Craig and Liam understood.

  “OK, I won’t bore you with how we got here but Bella Westbury had a daisy shaped scar on the back of her left hand from Henna gone wrong. It was never listed on her or her parents’ passports because they hadn’t flown since she’d acquired it, and it wasn’t used by the gendarmes in their searches-”

  Craig’s jaw dropped as something occurred to him, and he gasped out, “Thank God.”

  His deputy’s eyebrows shot up. “Was that you getting religion, boss, or is it something to do with the case?”

  “The second. I’ve just realised that the abductor would have had no knowledge of the girl’s scar before they took her unless they’d got very close indeed, and if it was never advertised by the police or the media as a recognition feature they’re unlikely to have bothered removing it since.”

  “Which means?”

  “I’m not sure yet, I’ll come back to you on that. Sorry, go on, Ash.”

  Just as the analyst opened his mouth to speak again Andy jumped in, making Ash roll his eyes.

  “Sorry, but...”

  Craig waited expectantly to hear what came next, but it seemed to be being inhibited by a sudden attack of doubt.

  “Whatever you were going to say will be fine, Andy, just as long as it’s said in the next thirty seconds.”

  The D.C.I. glanced awkwardly around the group. “Well... it’s just that it sounds like we’re officially investigating two cases now instead of one.” He added hastily. “Which is fine of course, just as long as we know.”

  “You mean we’re searching for Bella Westbury now as well as Stuart Kincaid’s killer.”

  Andy gave a sheepish smile. “Well, yes.”

  Craig scanned the group. “What does everyone else think? Are we?”

  “Yes” and, “Pretty much” came back.

  “And is that OK with people?”

  This time there was a unified nod. Just as well, because he’d known they’d been investigating the girl’s disappearance in parallel for days without admitting it out loud.

  “Thanks for clarifying that, Andy. Now, Ash, what were you going to say?”

  The analyst had taken advantage of the interruption to perch on a nearby desk, so he continued talking from there.

  “OK, so, the daisy also wasn’t listed on any of the fifteen passports under distinguishing marks, but like the chief just said, if whoever took her hadn’t known about it before they took her they might have found out too late to have it noted down. So I decided to call my mate Quattro-”

  Liam howled with laughter. “His parents named him after a car?”

  Ash rolled his eyes, annoyed at the interruption. “It’s his nickname, not his real name.”

  Craig interceded, trying to be helpful. “It means four in Italian, Liam.”

  But his support just gave the analyst the back-up he needed to push things even more.

  “Yeh, ’cos that’s when he first got called it, Dumbo.”

  Davy eyes widened at the insult and he jumped in hastily, trying to prevent a fight. “They’re making a new movie version of that, you know. With Colin Farrell.”

  But Liam was seriously unimpressed by the moniker he’d just been given and glared at the junior analyst. “That’s D.C.I. Dumbo to you, you little squit.”

  Craig wondered whether Liam realised what he’d just said, but Ash wasn’t about to hang around till he did so he moved things along.

  “So anyway...Quattro works in IT for the central aviation authority and he’s really connected, so I asked him what happens if an airport security guard notices a distinguishing mark on someone that hasn’t been noted on their passport. Long story short he said that as long as the face matched and the person had got the mark after the passport was issued, then they’d just note it down on a separate register and it would be added by the host country when the passport was next being renewed.”

  Craig tensed at the possible implications and motioned the analyst to pause. “Comments anyone?”

  Liam got in first. “That means the bastards had a passport already waiting before they took her.”

  Aidan chipped in. “It mightn’t have been one specific to the Westbury girl, just a proforma waiting to be filled in.”

  “No, because then they’d still have had time to put in the daisy under distinguishing marks.”

  Craig waved them down. “There’s something more here than that. Anyone?”

  When nothing came he answered his question himself.

  “The kidnappers missed Bella’s scar off the passport, so they obviously didn’t know about it. But they must have been watching her constantly to snatch her in the tight one minute timeframe that she was left alones why didn’t they know about it? That tells me her passport must have been prepared so far in advance it was before she’d even acquired the scar.”

  Seeing nothing but blank looks he turned to his deputy. “Liam, when did Edgar Westbury say she got the Henna tattoo?”

  “April. Four months before she disappeared.”

  Craig turned to his pathologist. “John, the father said the scar was red and ugly but faded quickly. How long does it take for a scar to fade to white?”

  “For adults over a year, but for a child that young the cell turnover is so rapid that a few months could have done it.”

  It confirmed what
Edgar Westbury had said.

  Liam knew which direction Craig’s thoughts were going so he headed him off at the pass.

  “That scar’s pretty small, boss. They wouldn’t have noticed it before they took her unless they’d got really close.”

  Craig shook his head. “They should have when it was red, Liam. The Westburys said it was red and nasty so it would have stood out against her fair skin even from a distance. Anyone watching her would have noticed something on the back of her hand for months even if they hadn’t known it was a flower. The kidnappers must have made their abduction plan and prepped the girl’s passport before she’d got the scar in April, and then only kept her under distant surveillance until the snatch.”

  Liam kept arguing his case. “But they had to keep a close enough watch on her to spot the exact time her mum left her alone in the garden and execute the lift.”

  “Why? They could have been watching remotely and still seen that.”

  The D.C.I. gasped. “You think their house in France was on CCTV?”

  Craig nodded eagerly. “It makes sense. If someone was watching Bella on CCTV the images would have been too grainy to see the scar, but they would still have been alerted to any possible opportunities to snatch her like her playing in the garden. It wouldn’t have taken long to orchestrate a snatch, especially if she’d already been a surveillance target for months.”

  Liam was sceptical. “They’d have to have been spot-on in their timings, boss.”

  “Let’s see.” Craig turned to his chief analyst. “Was the Westburys’ house on CCTV, Davy?”

  “Sorry, chief, I’m still struggling to find out anything on CCTV beyond the hotel. Everything seems to be ‘tomorrow’ over there. It must be the heat.”

  “OK, leave it with me.” Their trip to France was reappearing.

  But the analyst hadn’t finished. “Although if you pushed me-”

  “Consider yourself shoved.”

  “OK, then, I’d say that because the house was in the hotel grounds and therefore part of its property, if the rest of the hotel had CCTV surveillance then it should have had as well.”