A Private Investigation

by Peter Grainger

  Maggie smiled again, a smile that Smith realised he had missed since she left, but although that was less than two years ago, those were already the good old days. She said, ‘OK… And those words are significant because?’

  ‘That anonymous message was the beginning of the song. The second verse begins “I go checking out the reports, digging up the dirt, you get to meet all sorts in this line of work…”

  Maggie pursed her lips, frowned and looked away from him for a moment, giving this her full attention. After a moment, Murray said, ‘Well, whoever wrote it got that right.’

  Then from Maggie, ‘I take it you haven’t mentioned that to the SIO?’

  ‘No, not to either of them. You know that sexist thing about never having two women in the same kitchen? It doesn’t just apply to kitchens. But I can’t start trying to redirect an inquiry based on that – something he said reminded me of a song, ma’am, so I suggest that Marco Andretti has masterminded the abduction of another young girl from his prison cell. I’d find myself in a cell, the padded variety.’

  Murray and Maggie looked at each other, a private close-couple look that Smith found impossible to read. Were they deciding how to break it to him?

  Murray said, ‘I’ve got to be honest, DC. It’s pretty thin. “Digging up the dirt”? You don’t hear it every day but it’s not that unusual. And it’s not as if anyone can interview either of them about their musical tastes, is it? So…’

  ‘So I am being paranoid? Except.’

  He opened his mobile phone, and as he did so he told them about an old-fashioned Principal Prison Officer named West, who didn’t think much of the new regimes and who thought even less of being told how to manage his charges by pseudo-doctors of fake sciences. Officer West had wandered down to Andretti’s cell yesterday afternoon, just a routine security check after a Category A prisoner has received a visit. Officer West had stood in the cell, taken a good look around and then he had gone back to his office and sent a text. Smith explained to Murray and Maggie what he had said to the prison officer before leaving Long Hill, and then he handed his phone to Maggie.

  She read out, ‘“Personally I’m a big-band man but you were right. Plenty of CDs by the one you mentioned. He probably has the full set.”’

  Smith said, ‘If Andretti has “plenty”, he probably does have the full set because there aren’t that many. He has half a shelf full of Dire Straits albums in his cell. He’s a fan. That’s an appalling thing for me to say because so am I.’

  Maggie said, ‘Is there any way Andretti could have known that?’

  ‘I can’t think of one. I should be getting a log of his online activity eventually but that sort of info isn’t going to be anywhere on the internet. I haven’t been interviewed by Rolling Stone magazine for at least five years. If he dug back far enough, there might be something about the guitar-playing but…’

  ‘But he’s the sort, isn’t he, and with nothing else to do all day but think about the man who put him away?’

  She held up the phone with the message still showing and said, ‘I’d say this tilts things a bit in your direction.’ Then she handed it back to him.

  Murray said, ‘All those years ago – what was the relationship between the two of them, Andretti and Harris?’

  ‘Andretti was the mentor, we never had any doubt about that. Harris was very young, eighteen or nineteen but he was already odd. John, you used that word yourself about him last week, remember? Even Terek called him an oddball. The rest of the family moved away to make a fresh start but something kept Harris here and I don’t think it was a college place. I’m not saying he always intended to carry on the family business but…’

  John Murray wasn’t the most mercurial of detectives but he was probably the most methodical that Smith had ever met, and that was just one of the reasons why he, Smith, was sitting in Murray’s living room that afternoon.

  Murray said, ‘Let’s get one thing clear, DC. You’re suggesting that the abduction of Zoe Johnson was planned and carried out to get at you personally. I can see why you haven’t mentioned this to Allen, Reeve or Freeman yet.’

  ‘Not quite, John. I’m suggesting that I can only see two possibilities. One – they were not involved in it but they decided to use it to get to me, a sort of very sick joke. Or two, they are both involved in Zoe’s abduction and it is part of a plan to get to me. If it is that, presumably they want me to do something that I haven’t yet done.’

  Murray gave a single nod and began another steady evaluation of the two possibilities Smith had presented, but after a few seconds it was Maggie who broke the silence.

  ‘Hold on, DC. The girl disappeared on the 4th. Harris hasn’t visited Long Hill since then?’

  He knew where she was going with this as he said, ‘No.’

  ‘They haven’t exchanged letters since?’

  ‘No, and before you ask, there hasn’t been a phone call – at least not an official one. There might be an illegal mobile inside – in fact there will be lots – but Andretti has never been caught in any dodgy phone dealings, I checked that with the governor.’

  Maggie said, ‘So if it’s the first possibility – they had nothing to do with it but used it to target you in a sick joke – how did they coordinate it? The anonymous note must have been posted in Lake but Andretti is using the same song lyrics in meaningful ways inside the prison a few days later. That’s not an acceptable coincidence.’

  Murray said, ‘When was the last visit?’

  ‘The 25th of November. Almost a month ago.’

  ‘If they haven’t been in touch since then, that means either it was a coincidence, or… Or they planned it all months ago. Honestly, DC, it doesn’t seem likely, but-’

  ‘But we know that Harris began to visit more often, as often as he was allowed, a few months ago. Once a fortnight. All of that time he went alone even though he was living with Shona Benson. Only recently did he invite her along. I reckon that’s the point at which they’d finished making plans. And it was seven months ago that Harris got his licence to start driving the van around Lake after dark instead of Hunston.’

  Murray was a big man, eighteen stones or more, and it was no easier to shift his ideas once fixed than it would have been to pick him up and position him somewhere else in the room. But he was wavering a little now.

  ‘That would mean the girl never was the target – you were. She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

  Smith nodded – ‘I said that weeks ago, before I knew any of what I’ve just told you. But I had a funny feeling, once we’d eliminated the family.’

  Maggie said, ‘It’s not that preposterous, you being the target, DC. We’ve all experienced the devious bastards who try to pull you into the swamp with them. And the timing? You about to retire? That could have triggered it. I think you’ve got to take it to Alison Reeve at least. She’d give you a hearing.’

  Murray had been following his own train of thought rather than listening to Maggie. He said, ‘In which case, if Zoe Johnson is some sort of bait, she’s likely to be still alive. No reason to do her more harm than necessary to get your attention.’

  Smith said, ‘Agreed, John, that’s how I’m looking at it. Andretti killed the girls for reasons that we never properly understood. He froze their bodies and later put them out on the coast in some bizarre ritual that meant something to him – but it was also about outwitting the police. We know he kept all the publicity. The likelihood that Harris has the same kind of thing going on in his head must be minimal. His motivation is probably different, then. It’s something to do with Andretti. Righting a wrong, or even just revenge.’

  And Murray could surprise him, even after all this time. Murray said, ‘Right… The allegations that someone planted something. Enough to tip the jury into a conviction.’

  Smith had no idea that Murray or anyone else he had worked with in the past decade knew about that. Never proven, no substance to any of it, but at the time, when it was bei
ng investigated, Smith had spent too many hours working out how it could have been done and by whom, if it had been done. He had come up with a list of one.

  Smith said to Maggie, ‘You’re right – Alison would listen, and she’d take me seriously. But if I’m right, it’s my attention that Harris wants. We’ve had a big team on it for almost a month, helicopters and TV broadcasts, and we’ve got nowhere. If this is personal, why not go the other way? Let Harris see me taking a personal interest. If I’m there, and if I’m not going insane, he has to make some sort of a move. There has to be some point to it. That’s when he’s most likely to slip up, and we’re most likely to find the girl. If I’m wrong, it’ll just mean John Wilson has the last laugh. That’s a chance I’m willing to take.’

  They had all sat in silence then, until Maggie said, ‘If someone has gone to that much trouble… If this is aimed at you, DC, you should be careful.’

  There was another pause before Murray said, ‘Alright, DC. How can we help?’

  ‘You told me that you and Mike Dunn are going to watch Harris. You’ve got the graveyard shift, starting tonight?’

  ‘Yes. This comes from DCI Freeman, I’d say. She’s the most interested in Harris, we reckon.’

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘Two or three nights would be my guess.’

  Smith was still Murray’s sergeant, so why did it feel awkward, the thing he was about to ask? Does conscience make cowards of us all? Maybe. But then he thought about Penny Johnson standing in the rain at the playpark. He remembered what she had said on the telephone a few days ago – “Roy said you’re the sort of bloke who’d find her if anyone could. We both think that…”.

  ‘OK, John. You know I’ll be on desk duty for the last week. But if you can, let me know what’s going on with the observation. Do it discreetly, don’t get yourself into any bother. Anything and everything, all the details. If you’re not happy-’

  Young William had better watch out in the years to come. His dad doesn’t get annoyed very often, but when he does, it’s obvious. The moment passed quickly and then Murray said, ‘I’m off shift at eight tomorrow morning. I’ll be back here by nine. Give me a call.’

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Five fifteen pm. There was a streetlight close to Harris’s house, more or less in front of it. Anyone looking from that direction would have their vision impaired a little after dark but Smith had made no attempt to conceal the Peugeot. What would have been the point? He wanted Harris to know he was there.

  For the past two nights Harris had followed exactly the routine that Murray had told him about on the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday mornings; for five nights there had been no deviation at all. He left home at half past five and then stopped at the same four places in Kings Lake each evening – the times at which he left each position never varied by more than a few minutes. Harris seemed to lead a clockwork life. If he knew he was still being watched, he would know by now it was by Smith alone, and yet still nothing had altered. What was he waiting for? And what was supposed to happen after tonight, because this was Smith’s last as a policeman? Was that the point? A private investigation – was that what they wanted?

  Only Murray had been told what was going on. If this resulted in some sort of catastrophe, Reeve, Freeman, Allen, Assistant Chief Constable Devine and the Home Secretary herself could question John Murray about it until the cows came home – they would get nowhere. Christopher Waters and Serena Butler were as good as young colleagues get these days but they were still young, with careers ahead of them – knowing what was going on here was the last thing they needed. Smith thought back to yesterday morning then, when DCI Cara Freeman had come to his desk and told him she had the clearance she needed to take Serena into the county’s new murder unit from February the first. Would he like to be the one to give her the news?

  He had declined, saying the girl might as well meet the new boss, just like the old boss, and Freeman had said she was taking that as a compliment. Half an hour later, Serena had come back into the office, walked to his desk and told him to stand up. Then she had put her arms around him and thanked him in a very soppy way, much to the delight of Wilson’s crew, who had no idea what was really going on. When he had escaped the embrace, he told her he didn’t want to hear from her again until she had made sergeant.

  Moments after that, he had seen a look on Waters’ face – a look that said, so that’s it then, that’s two of them, of us, gone. Teams come and go, something you’ll have to learn, son. Everything is temporary. But Waters would be fine – he would make sergeant before Serena, and make it at the first attempt or Smith was a Dutchman. And that would make Dougie Waters a proud man, but he didn’t want to think any more about Dougie just then, not until this business was resolved.

  Five more minutes to go. Surveillance seems to distort the sense of time – it goes out of shape and years of memories sweep by in moments. He’d done this on his very first day in plain clothes, sitting beside Sergeant Tom Dixon who was never called anything but “George” because he shared his surname with the most famous policeman on television at the time. As a newcomer, you had no idea whether or not you should use his nickname, so the first few weeks left you in an agony of indecision, which Tom Dixon knew perfectly well. They had watched a warehouse in the old docks, tobacco smuggling it was… What would a man like Tom Dixon think of the state of things now? Class A drugs on every street corner if you know what to look for, young women being smuggled in for the sex trade instead of packets of Golden Virginia, Albanians running protection rackets instead of the old Carter boys who did a good job of keeping the peace in the rougher parts of town when the bobbies were busy elsewhere.

  The log of Andretti’s internet usage had also arrived yesterday. Waters had gone over it because he was best equipped to do so but also because that kept Smith right away from the investigation, which was where he now needed to be as far as Kings Lake Central was concerned. The log contained only one item of interest – Andretti had visited the online portal of the Lake Daily News regularly over the past few weeks. To have done so only since Zoe disappeared would have looked a little suspicious, but Andretti was clever – he would have thought of that months before and made sure he was reading the paper online well before the story that interested him appeared.

  When the office was quiet, Smith had gone back himself and read everything the Daily had put online about the investigation, wanting to know exactly what Andretti might have gleaned from it. There wasn’t much. Superintendent Allen had made a public statement saying the police were concerned and making every effort but they had no evidence to suggest the young woman had come to harm. No other officers’ names were mentioned and no details of the ongoing investigation had been given. There was a number people could call if they had information.

  Almost time. Smith looked up and blinked his eyes into focus. Six and a half hours left. Beyond midnight was a darkness, a chasm into which he could not see. He would most likely have made more of a plan if it hadn’t been for this business but there was one commitment, and he was half-wishing he hadn’t made it now. Jo had said it, you can’t spend Christmas on your own, and she had said it after he told her that’s what he had done, entirely through choice, last year. During the evening, he’d driven up to a private do at Shirley Salmon’s caravan park but the morning had been a delight of sentimental music, reading and solitary peace and quiet.

  But you cannot, we won’t allow it, Jo said. ‘We’ was her aunt and herself and the small family they had in north London; there were some cousins, a great uncle and long-time friends, and Smith was to come up and meet them. He was to catch the fast, nine o’clock train, and if he didn’t get off it at Kings Cross a few minutes before eleven she would be ringing his telephone until he answered to explain why. If Harris kept to the routine, he would leave his spot in the market square at 23.30 and be back here just before midnight, allowing Smith to be in bed by half past if he didn’t mess about. Up at 06.00, sort the h
ouse out, call a taxi, pack a bag for a couple of nights and be at the station for ten minutes to nine. The start of a new life, and cancelling it didn’t seem to be an option.

  It was cold in the car, with temperatures expected to fall below zero by the morning, but he didn’t like to sit there with the engine running, probably too mean to waste the fuel as much as trying to save the planet. He glanced at the watch – surely we’re running late by now – but when he looked out again through the windscreen, Harris was there. Not in any of the usual places, though; he had come to the end of the drive, close to where it met the road, making himself plainly visible in the streetlight.

  Smith cursed silently and wondered what else he had missed. After five apparently identical nights, any deviation feels hugely significant. Harris was simply standing there, looking up and down the road as if expecting someone, but now that the streetlamp was if anything slightly behind him in relation to where Smith’s car was parked, he might have a clearer view. They were not sixty yards apart now, and Smith made no attempt to sit further down in his seat or to lean back into shadow. Again, Harris’s gaze went from left to right along the street, passing over the line of parked cars. And something has changed, thought Smith.

  Then, after maybe thirty seconds, Harris walked back to the van and started it up, making the customary checks and writing something on a clipboard. That might be just the businessman – no doubt Harris kept meticulous records. Smith made a check of his own, taking out his phone and opening the screen; he went to messages, to write a message, and John Murray’s name and number were there in readiness.

  The van pulled out and turned right, the headlight beams swinging across the T junction in front of the Peugeot. Smith started the engine and began to ease forward, but then, remarkably, another car was coming from the right and he had to wait for it to pass before he could follow Harris. Now the three vehicles were in a convoy, heading down towards the main road to Lake. It wouldn’t hurt to be one space back behind if this were a proper tailing job, but… The intervening car turned left at the roundabout, heading in the Hunston direction, not a part of this after all – the thought had crossed Smith’s mind that there might be a second cousin or two involved as well. But no, now it was just the two of them again.