He stood by her side and looked at the same noticeboard. The entire thing was taken up by the latest display of the Norfolk force’s equal opportunities and diversity policies, and the promises and pledges made by the recently elected Police and Crime Commissioner in this regard. The job title had always intrigued Smith. He could see the logic in having a commissioner for the police, the meaning of “commissioner” being, after all, an official in charge of a department or a service – but what did it mean to have a commissioner for crime? Someone to take a lead in crime and make sure it was carried out more efficiently? Someone to argue for more funding for crime as well as policing? As a soon-to-be ex-policeman himself, of course, it was an office that he could stand for in the future, and that had a momentary appeal. Imagine sitting across the desk from Assistant Chief Constable Devine and Detective Superintendent Allen with a long list of awkward questions you’d spent a happy weekend dreaming up.
‘Sorry about that, David.’
Cara Freeman still had her eyes on the noticeboard but she didn’t have anything to worry about here, surely; Smith considered his morning so far and concluded that women were now without a doubt making the most of their opportunities, at least as far as he was concerned. Even the new PCC was a Tracey something…
He said, ‘Not a problem, ma’am. You can’t do thirty-two years without making at least one mistake. It’s just ironic that it came right at the end.’
She smiled and said, ‘That was your first and your one and only? Nice! My guess is you don’t make many mistakes but you still manage to get up people’s noses.’
She turned away from the board then to face him.
He said, ‘I think for some people the one causes the other, if you see what I mean.’
Freeman was younger than Reeve, and once he would have said too young to be where she was in the service. She was of his own height, and of a slender build, with pale, delicate-seeming skin and light blue-grey eyes – and if you had met her at a party and been told what she did for a living you would not at first believe it, especially if she had been dressed as she was here in skinny-fitting jeans and some sort of trendy pullover thing. But those were uncompromising eyes fixed on him now, as she considered her response.
‘Yes, I do,’ as if she understood him only too well. And then, ‘When I suggested that this whole Harrison-Harris business might be just a coincidence, you didn’t come back at me. Why not?’
‘Because it might be?’
‘Not good enough!’
She had taken him by surprise then.
‘OK. Because it might be, and because there is a time and a place. Knowing I was about to be reprimanded in my own DCI’s office meant that it was neither.’
‘Fair comment. You provoked my sergeant and honour had to be satisfied, didn’t it? But that’s all under the bridge now. So, Harrison-Harris. Is it a coincidence?’
A mere slip of a girl his mother might have said, but that comment about honour having to be satisfied told Smith something; Cara Freeman was a serious player, a force to be reckoned with within the force. Alison was a good detective – very good, if he said so himself – but he wasn’t certain she had another promotion in her; he had no doubt, however, that this young woman still had places to go.
He said, ‘Still too early to say – but if I were running the show, I’d be inclined to approach the matter as if it were not one. When it comes to Andrettis, experience tells me it’s better to be safe than sorry.’
‘That’s a quite circumspect reply.’
‘Sometimes that’s how you catch the monkey.’
‘Softly, softly? I thought you wanted to pull Harrison back in straight away, or turn over his place.’
‘I would, yes, but only on the grounds that he has admitted having the girl inside his van. As one of my DCs has already pointed out, that could have been innocent or it could’ve been the move of a clever man. But I wouldn’t let him know that we know who he is yet – I’d watch him in interviews and edge around it, see how he reacted. That would need a light touch.’
He could hear her phone buzzing in a pocket somewhere but she ignored it, giving what he was saying her full attention.
‘OK. Interesting. Obviously we should say we wouldn’t let him know who we think he is, but I get the feeling that you’re certain he’s Paolo Harris.’
Over her shoulder, Smith saw someone appear further down the corridor – Terry Christopher turned the corner, saw them and immediately retreated. It wasn’t clear whether he realised that Smith had seen him.
He said to her, ‘I’m having difficulty convincing people that in some cases there are some faces you never forget. If on Monday Harrison turns out not to be Harris, I’ll go straight home and forgo the last nine days of my pension contributions. That could mean that by the age of ninety-five I will be living in penury.’
Cara Freeman had a face that most would describe as plain but when she smiled the light lit up her intelligence like sunshine on running water.
She said, ‘No need for dramatic gestures! We’ll think carefully about who should interview him.’
Which Smith took to mean she was going with his instincts that Harrison should be brought back in soon. He made a move to leave then but she said, ‘I don’t make many mistakes either.’
He waited, not sure where that had come from, and she half-turned away from him and back to the noticeboard as if it really did have some meaning for her.
‘I mean in general, in the job. One I did make was a couple of years ago. Some bloke had disappeared off a gas rig out in the North Sea, and I had to fly out there to see whether it had security implications – that was just routine procedure. It didn’t, and it looked obvious that this person had had an accident and gone over the side. So then me and my sergeant jumped back onto the helicopter and left a couple of local plods to sweep up the mess. But lo and behold, it turns out that this bloke – I can’t remember his name…’
‘James Bell.’
‘That’s it. This James Bell had been killed onshore and never even arrived on the rig he was supposed to have fallen off. It was a case that came out of nothing and I never saw it. It wasn’t my case, and it never counted against me, but I never saw it.’
Smith nodded sympathetically and said, ‘Well, we’ve all had them.’
‘I never saw it and you did. It’s been bugging me ever since. What did you see?’
He knew that feeling, the nagging doubt that you’ve missed the detail that springs open a case, like a secret button on an antique jewellery box. Freeman was looking directly at him again, and he hoped that if she interviewed Harris herself, he would at least get to watch the recording this time, or if not, the box set eventually.
‘When we looked into him, we found he had a pretty alternative lifestyle – it seemed possible therefore that he might have had a pretty alternative ending as well. Also, I never liked that operations manager. I’ve always had doubts about Geordies in suits. And then there was this lock that was far too shiny…’
She stared a little blankly at him before she said, ‘Oh, well, that’s cleared that up, then.’
When he didn’t respond, she said, ‘And then last year, when we came in on that class A shipment into Kings Lake docks, you had it tied to the abduction of those two teenagers and the killing in Littlemoor prison before the rest of us. Thank God you did. If we’d gone for the shipment first as command had planned, it wouldn’t have turned out as well as it did for those two kids, would it? So how did you see the big picture in that case?’
Smith recognised that trait too, the going over and over it, sometimes for years, trying to squeeze something useful out of every failure so it stops eating away at you. When it’s about money or the fact that dealers have beaten the system, it’s bad enough – when it’s about lives endangered or lost because you didn’t spot what was printed on one tiny fragment of a ten-thousand-piece jigsaw, you don’t get over it. The scars never heal.
He said, ‘I don’t
know. There’s no magic in this job, no secret. You just hope the birds have left enough breadcrumbs, I suppose. After a while there are patterns to it – human nature doesn’t change much over time. In the end, you’ve met pretty much every type there is going, and you start relating them to each other. Make a list of everyone with a motive and the odds are you’ve just written down the name of your perpetrator. Ninety percent of the time it’s sex or money – you know that already. The other ten percent are often the interesting ones.’
After a pause, she said, ‘I’m glad we had this conversation. I’ve got two more questions.’
‘Do I need a solicitor?’
She smiled but it wasn’t her proper one.
‘First. After both the cases I just mentioned I tried to get you into Regional Serious Crimes. Why did you turn that down? It’s alright, I’m not revisiting it, just curious.’
Smith said, ‘I’ve been faffing about with this retirement thing for a couple of years, putting it off. I couldn’t have given a job like that what it needed, not with that in the back of my mind. Second question?’
The smile had faded altogether now. He could see she was measuring her words carefully before she spoke again.
‘OK. Before I offer anyone a position like that, I have a good look at them, as you would yourself, I’m sure.’
She waited then until he acknowledged it.
‘I read the files. Marco Andretti made a number of allegations against you during and after the trial. He claimed that you, as the senior investigating officer, had planted evidence. I would not normally mention this – I hope you can accept that – but in view of what has taken place this morning, I have to say something. Do you see what I mean?’
Oh yes, he could see it alright.
Cara Freeman went on, ‘If Paul Harrison really is Paolo Harris… I’m sorry, but was there ever any truth in them? In the allegations that Andretti made against you?’
The day had taken Smith by surprise in more ways than one. When he pulled to a halt outside the Railway playpark, the cloud had broken up and a weak sun was beginning to shine. Usually he would have predicted this because he took an interest in such things; stop him in the corridor on a typical day and ask for the general outlook, and he would say something like, well, there’s a ridge of high pressure building over the Azores which will move steadily east – we should have fine weather by the weekend. One of his A levels was in geography and he had enjoyed his university days in Belfast, impersonating Stuart Reilly, and sometimes wishing he was him instead of merely pretending to be. When he lost track of the weather, then, it meant he was preoccupied.
The office had been getting busy when he left at lunchtime, not least because of the information he had added to the mix, and he needed somewhere to think. Jo would be home by now, so that was out of the question – it was either the station carpark or take a drive. He had taken a drive and ended up here, but wasn’t entirely sure why.
That had taken some nerve, hadn’t it? A youngster like Cara Freeman looking him in the eye and asking whether he had framed Marco Andretti? Was that why she had waited for him in the corridor in the first place or was she making it up as she went along? He didn’t think it was the latter. Freeman had asked him how he had seen the big picture in those earlier investigations but for a short while at least she had been ahead of him on this one. He felt stupid now, thinking back, telling her to look for the motive as if she was a rookie, a Detective Constable Waters of three years ago; Ms Freeman had joined up some very scattered dots in a matter of a few minutes and something deeply unpleasant seemed to be appearing. What was her process, though? Missing girl – DC Smith – Paolo Harris – Marco Andretti equals a motive? He couldn’t see that clearly, and the entire thing might be taking place in his imagination, but if it wasn’t… And what motive exactly? Payback? Revenge? Had he brought this upon himself in some ill-fated way by saying that the ten per cent, the ones in which the motive isn’t sex or money, were the interesting ones?
A man of about his own vintage came walking towards the entrance to the park, with a small dog on a lead, some sort of wire-haired terrier cross. The dog began pulling because it knew exactly where it was, so this was part of the daily routine. A dog was a real possibility now. In the new year he could go down to the rescue centre and spend an hour or two choosing the most hopeless-looking case, giving himself a new mission in life. They get you out of the house and you meet other dog owners – realms of exciting social opportunities open up when you join that fraternity, and without the secret handshakes.
He had to admit something to himself, though. After this morning, a part of him wished he’d taken up one of Cara Freeman’s offers of a job in RSCU, if only so that he could have observed her close up and also so that he could have solved the mystery of why she kept Detective Sergeant Terry Christopher trailing round after her. Why was there no intervening DI? Another little puzzle. Presumably, she had looked him up – Smith, that is – before she made the first job offer, and later she had approached the matter again through Superintendent Allen, so whatever she had read in the files hadn’t put her off the idea. Presumably.
The man and the dog had disappeared into the park. He could catch up with the chap and ask him whether he came this way every morning. What about last Monday and Tuesday, sir, you might remember, we’d had a lot of rain on and off for the previous couple of days. Did you see anyone, notice anything? Had that sort of follow-up been done by anyone? He didn’t know the answer, knew only that this one had got away from him.
Looking at the entrance gate, he noticed something pinned to it, a bedraggled piece of paper. He got out and went over to it. A4 sized, it had bent over in the wind and rain – when he opened the paper out, he saw what it was. Someone had produced a notice to tell the world that Zoe Johnson was missing but it was amateurish. There was a picture of her, poorly reproduced and a brief explanation of when and where she was last seen, complete with spelling mistakes. Somehow it was the mistakes that hurt the most – Mrs Johnson perhaps, or a relative or even the guilty neighbour. Smith read it twice to be sure it contained nothing that the police hadn’t already been told, and then he took one of the pins out and pushed it back into the top of the notice so that at least the girl’s blurred face was visible to the passing world. You couldn’t prevent the thought coming that it was what they would have done if they’d lost a kitten.
When he opened the front door, there was the smell of cooking – a faint but definite air of onions, garlic, maybe basil and some other herbs. Make yourself at home, he’d said, treat the place as your own, but he hadn’t expected this. He went towards the kitchen. Jo wasn’t there but a saucepan on the hob was bubbling quietly, on the lowest setting. It was a pasta sauce. Automatically he picked up the wooden spoon from the work surface, dipped it in and tasted – and it was good, strong on the tomatoes which he liked. Not far off the way he made it himself, as a matter of fact.
When he turned around, she was standing in the doorway through to the lounge. She said, ‘Well, is it alright?’
He made the face that says he’s still having to think it over and then he nodded.
‘It’s better than that. Good.’
‘It’s just a sauce. I don’t claim to be a cook but single people can usually make a pasta sauce.’
An offhand remark, almost a joke, but sad in some strange way that echoed in the little silence between them. Suddenly this had become a moment – her in his kitchen, Sheila’s kitchen, cooking him a late lunch after he’d been unexpectedly delayed at work. And the mention of that word “single” which could have consequences far beyond anything a devious woman might have intended.
Jo said then, ‘I bought some fresh pasta from that delicatessen you suggested. And some rye bread because it looked nice. So we’re overdoing the carbs – sorry! Do you want to take over?’
She was pointing to the items on the work surface, perhaps, in her offer to withdraw, acknowledging that she might have gone too f
ar.
Smith said, ‘No, you carry on. I’ll fetch a bottle of red from the garage. There’s a good Spanish Garnacha that should do it justice.’
Coming back from the garage, bottle in hand, he stopped for a moment. He could see her through the kitchen window, cutting the rye bread into slices. It was the smallest thing, a commonplace, an action carried out millions of times every day all over the human world – a woman preparing food – but he felt as if he was witnessing a miracle.
Chapter Nineteen
Detective Chief Inspector Alison Reeve had been right – you can call yourself by any name that you like. You can change your label as often as you change your shirt and you have committed no criminal offence in doing so. Certain institutions would rather you didn’t, of course, but as long as you can persuade a couple of people to sign a piece of paper confirming that you used to be called this but now you would like to be called that, it’s legal and you have your new identity.
Paolo Harris had gone one step further, and by half past nine on Monday the 11th of December, Detective Sergeant Terry Christopher had found the public record which showed that Mr Harris had enrolled his deed poll at the Royal Courts of Justice for the princely sum of £36. This seems little enough to pay for a brand-new identity that even our now rigorous money-laundering laws must recognise. As DCI Reeve pointed out, however, the fact that Harris had registered his new name in the public record suggested that Paul Harrison wasn’t exactly trying to hide the fact he had once been Paolo Harris – in fact, as Christopher said, his choice of new name indicated an unwillingness to entirely let go of his old one; Paul was the English equivalent of Paolo and rather than reject “Harris” he had simply added a couple of letters to it.
When the name changes went up onto the interactive whiteboard, Smith looked around at the faces of the Kings Lake detectives but there would be no moment of recognition. No one here had worked the Andretti investigation with him, too long ago, but there was an odd little irony in the fact that if Waters’ father, Dougie, had been in the room, he would have leapt to his feet and pointed to the infernal device on the wall that hadn’t even been invented when they caught Andretti – when Dougie had knocked him down and punched him until Smith himself had pulled the detective off. Waters had three sisters, and Dougie had seen three of those murdered girls cold in the Norfolk dunes.
A Private Investigation Page 19
