“Well, if I have to, I guess…”
“You don’t have to, Katey. I’m just asking you if you will. I believe it will be better for your mum to wait another day for what will most probably be a much fuller picture.”
“Okay. Sorry. SKS again, I’m afraid.”
“SKS?”
“Spoilt kid syndrome – it appears to be untreatable.”
Jo laughed this time.
“Don’t despair, Katey. I’ve seen a lot worse cases. See you tomorrow. Let your mum know; I’ll phone her with a time beforehand.”
She got into the front passenger seat and, as the car pulled away, took her mobile from her pocket to make the second call to her boss in the space of two hours.
*
If John Mackay’s office was large, then his boss’s was palatial. It resembled a set in a period drama, with carved-panelled walls, pictures of hunting scenes and pastoral landscapes, floor-to-ceiling book shelves packed with leather-bound volumes, a range of antique furniture and a pair of chandeliers, shedding a soft glow over everything. The occupant seemed somewhat out of place in the midst of all this splendour. Edwin Mills was of average height and stocky, with the rugged face of a prize-fighter under greying, close-cropped hair.
His reaction to the news was exactly what John had expected.
“So you gave the go-ahead to search for the rucksack?” He glared across the desk at the Chief Superintendent.
“Well, of course I did. Kadawe went into the grounds with it and came out without it. What else would you expect me to do, for God’s sake?”
“So what happens next?”
“Well, she’s taking the Thompson girl to formally ID the rucksack, then it will go to forensics – as always. Then I guess early tomorrow we’ll have an idea if it’s…”
“Shit! Look, we need more time; this is moving too fast, I have to go higher with everything we do on this.” He looked hard across at John. “You do understand, don’t you? You can see the bigger picture? Expulsion is the symbolic flagship of the NJR. If the process is discredited by a wrongful conviction, it could shake the foundation of the whole structure!”
“Come on, Eddie. It would just be seen as an unfortunate mistake. Collateral victims – as Tom Brown himself would point out. People voted for the NJR knowing this could happen.”
“No they didn’t, John! That’s where you’re wrong! They voted for getting rid of known domestic terrorists. It was only a few months ago that the possibility of shipping an innocent abroad came up. It was only then that the concept of accepting collateral damage was raised, at that TV interview with Sylvie Hanker the day after the announcement.” He got up from his chair and started stalking round the room. “And this is what pisses me off; all this is that arrogant bastard’s own fault! Expulsion was never designed for criminals found guilty of a specific offence. It was a new environment created for individuals who had serially rejected this one. That made sense. Wonder Boy himself said – or rather endorsed Deverall saying – the choice is ‘better or not’ as opposed to ‘guilty or not guilty?’ ‘Would it be better without these people?’, rather than, ‘are they guilty of a crime?’ That was the whole fucking point! If he hadn’t railroaded his drug dealing thing through, there could never have been such a thing as a miscarriage of justice with Exiles.”
“Well,” John said, “in less than forty-eight hours we have to release Kadawe or charge him. Assuming we get something from the rucksack, we can’t release him. Cottrell’s team is in celebration mode already. What do we tell them? Forget it, it’s too embarrassing? I understand even Harry Waters has been helping them.”
“Waters? Doesn’t he realise what he’s got to lose? The world’s gone fucking mad.”
He sat down again, trying to compose himself.
“Okay, John, here’s what you do – or what you tell your little terrier bitch to do. Charge him with dealing, ostensibly to give us longer to fully investigate the perversion case. That will give us all time to line up what we do next. Okay?”
“I don’t think Cottrell will like…”
Eddie banged his fist down on the desk, half-standing and leaning over to shout in John’s face. “I don’t give a shit what she likes or doesn’t like. Last time I checked, you out-ranked her by some considerable distance. If you’d like it to remain that way, then do your job and go and tell her what her Chief Constable has decided.”
John sprang to his feet.
“I don’t like being threatened or yelled at,” he shouted back. “We may have convicted two innocent men, resulting in a tragic death, and all the powers that be are worried about is how it’s going to look. How they’re going to look. Well, for one thing, they’re still alive. That must be some consolation!”
Eddie dropped back into his chair again. John remained on his feet for a while longer before sitting down.
“The big picture, John. You’re still missing the big picture – like you frequently do.” Eddie’s voice was quiet now. “It’s nothing to do with how people – individuals – are going to look; it’s about public confidence in the justice system. Now whether you believe that or not, please go and tell DI Cottrell that – for now, at least – the charge has to be dealing. And tell her not to charge him until, at the earliest, the day after tomorrow – Wednesday. That will give us a bit more time. Then we’ll move forward at a pace we can manage in order to avoid any fall-out from this. If she doesn’t like it, send her to see me, and I’m sure I can convince her we’re all on the same side.”
John rose to his feet to leave.
“I doubt that, Chief Constable. You’ve certainly not convinced me. But don’t worry, she’s an excellent officer and she’ll do as she’s told. I only hope we have enough on the dealing charge for the magistrate to commit.”
*
Jo parked her car a short distance away from the police vehicles and she and Cat walked across to where Tina was standing near the van in which the bag had been discovered. It was still in its hiding place, squeezed in amongst the tools under the floor at the rear of the vehicle. Cables and amplifiers from the back of the van were stacked close by and were also being examined.
Cat identified the rucksack straight away
“Not found anything else yet,” Tina said, “But we’ve got what we came for.”
Jo waved the senior SOCO over.
“We can move this now, Rory,” she said, indicating the rucksack, “and recover the van. Let’s get the bag to the lab right away.” She looked across at Tina.
“They’re expecting it any time,” the sergeant said.
Jo turned to Cat.
“Great. I guess that’s it. Thanks again. I’ll drive you back to Dagger’s. See you at the station, Tina.”
*
Cat didn’t speak at all during the short journey to Dagger’s place. When they arrived, Jo went in with her.
“Well, Catrina,” she said, when they were all seated together at his dining table. “There’s a good chance that we’ll be charging Mickey with perversion. You know what that means, don’t you?”
“You’ll be accusing him of setting up Jack and Jason.”
“That’s right.”
“He’s going to assume I’ve fingered him, isn’t he?”
“Not necessarily. Once we get him to admit he was at the party, we’ll be throwing other stuff at him as well. From what you’ve told us, he’s more likely to think it was something to do with the big guy who’s been worrying him these last few months. Or he might not have been telling you the truth when he said you two were the only ones who knew he was at the party. Whatever happens, we’ll keep your name – and Dagger’s – out of it. That was the deal as far as I’m concerned.”
There was a long, uneasy silence. Dagger was frowning, deep in thought.
“I’d really like to bel
ieve that,” he said. “Look, he’s been arrested for dealing, right?”
“Suspicion of dealing…”
Dags dismissed the technicality with a roll of his eyes. “And if he was to be found guilty of that, he’d be dumped at sea, right?”
Jo nodded.
“In which case, Cat would be safe. But instead you’re going for perversion of justice, which means what, exactly? He’ll do time and then be out again? And in the meantime, I suppose, he’ll be able to contact all his cronies – all the guys who are so shit-scared of him they’ll do anything he tells them. So where does that leave Cat? Right in the fucking firing line, that’s where! Cat’s taken this massive risk…”
“Hold on, Dags.” Cat smiled across at him and took hold of his hand. “My hero. What have I ever done to deserve you? But remember, it was my idea. It was my decision to tell the police about Mickey being at the party. Nobody asked me to. And DI Cottrell made it very clear about the risks of confronting Mickey when I offered to do that. But I was happy to do it. If Mickey set up Jack and Jason, I want to help make things as bad as possible for him.”
They sat in silence for a while before Dagger spoke again with the trace of tears in his eyes.
“Yes, but, Cat, I couldn’t stand it if something were to happen to you.”
Cat squeezed his hand.
“I’ll be safe with you,” she said.
“Look,” said Jo. “We’ll make sure that neither of you will be on your own while this gets resolved. Then perhaps you can drop out of sight for a while until…”
“Drop out of sight!” Dags shouted. “Fucking hell! We go on tour in just under two weeks. This is everything we’ve worked towards. Our first headlining tour! We can’t just drop out. There are contracts already signed. We’d never work again. If you ask me, Cat’s only going to be safe if Mickey Kadawe is either exiled or dead.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Tuesday; 22 September
It was 2.40 am when Jo and Tina finally met with Doctor Donovan Menzies, Head of O-SFS – On-Site Forensic Services – to review the information yielded by the rucksack. Jo had sent the rest of the team home at around 8.00 pm when it became obvious there would be a long wait for the analysis, with instructions to be in at 7.00 am the following morning. As the evening dragged itself into the night, Jo started to wonder when – or if – she and Tina were going to get any sleep themselves.
Their host wore the regulation white lab coat of his trade, and with his unruly mass of thinning hair, beaky nose and wire-rimmed glasses – currently pushed up high on his forehead – he looked every inch the quintessential mad professor. He was, in fact, one of the very best of his kind in the country.
“The right-hand side pocket of the bag,” he was saying, “contained two screw-drivers, a wood-chisel and a small hammer. There were no prints on these, but we did find traces of powder. Let’s leave those for now and come back to them a little later.
“We’ve tested the two surgical gloves found in the main compartment of the bag, and got good skin samples from inside, and product samples on the outside. Skin will be easy to match – though, even pulling a few strings, it could take up to twenty-four hours from when we get something to match it with. External powder traces are consistent with drugs found at Etherington Place and Copley Road. However, even if DNA testing shows Kadawe wore them, from what you say, that won’t prove anything. It would be common sense to use gloves in the circumstances he described, and he’s admitted finding the stuff and would probably say he’d handled it. All that would do on its own is substantiate his story.
“However, the bag itself contains a significant amount of the same substance as that found on the gloves. And when I say significant, I mean there is far more than can be explained away as coming off the gloves themselves. In fact, it is all over the interior of the bag – the bottom, the sides, even on the inside of the top flap. I’d say the rucksack has been full of the stuff at some time or other.”
“So would you be able to stand up in court and say the stuff found in Jack Tomlinson-Brown’s wardrobe had previously been in the rucksack?”
“Of course not…”
“I thought…”
“But you could.” He paused, as if for effect. “What I can say is, based on the tests we’ve carried out, the rucksack at some time contained a large quantity of cocaine identical in constitution to that found in Jack’s wardrobe and under the floorboards in Copley Road. Plus I can confirm – or not, if you’re wrong – that Kadawe wore those gloves at some time or other, and that they had been used to handle the material which was in the bag. That’s what I can say; that’s my job done.
“Then, of course,” he continued, “it’s down to you to put all that together and to link it to the other evidence – Kadawe admitting he took the sack into the party, claiming that the bag was empty except for some tools, finding the stuff but not putting any of it into the bag, etc. I think you could hypothesise convincingly that he took the stuff in with him and emptied the bag into the wardrobe bottom. Don’t you?”
“Yes, I’m sure I could,” Jo said.
“Just one question, Doc,” Tina put in. “If this stuff was in sealed plastic bags, how come there’s so much of it around on the inside of the sack and on the gloves?”
“Well, don’t forget, Sergeant, when I say it’s all over the inside of the bag, I mean minute traces of it. You couldn’t see them with a magnifying glass even if you knew exactly where to look. We can pick up individual grains of the powder. And as for how the stuff gets there, well any number of ways. It gets on the outside of the bags when they’re being filled, a faulty seal might allow a small amount to leak out, a bag could be dropped into the powder and wiped clean – that is ‘clean’ to the naked eye. Not anywhere near clean as far as we’re concerned.”
“But you say there’s enough on the inside of the bag to be certain that it didn’t just come off the gloves.”
“Absolutely. Not a shadow of a doubt. No-one’s going to challenge that, trust me. It’s not the amount that points to that, it’s the fact that it is all over the inside of the bag.”
“And the tools in the side pocket,” Jo said. “You were going to say something about them?”
“Oh yes. As I said, there is powder, but no prints, on the handles of the hammer, chisel and one of the screwdrivers, suggesting they were handled by the person who wore the gloves. Pretty obvious, I guess. It might also be possible to match some minute wood fragments on the chisel and the same screwdriver with the wood of the wardrobe or, more likely, the floorboard at the Midandas’. However, it might not be necessary.”
Jo and Tina looked at each other with wide involuntary smiles. Jo turned back to the doctor.
“That’s brilliant, Don; well worth staying up for. Could you do just one more thing? Would you write this up for us now, before you go, and post it on the case website? Then we can access it first thing in the morning.”
“Sure, no problem. You can wait for it if you like.”
“No thanks, it’s beddy-byes for us, I think. Got a meeting in…” she checked her watch “… just under four hours, and quite a day with Mr Kadawe to look forward to. Thanks a million, Don.”
*
By the time Jo arrived at the station a few minutes before seven, her team had already assembled and there was a buzz of anticipation in the MIT room. Waiting for her, in her office, was Harry Waters, clutching a type-written sheet of paper.
“Hi Harry. You don’t need to come in for seven o’clock every day. I’ll let you know when.”
Harry snorted a laugh. “I just wanted to catch you before you got started. Tina’s told me you’ve had a bit of a breakthrough with the rucksack.”
“Well, possibly.” She was careful not to sound too triumphant, given the vested interest of her audience. “But what’s your news?”
> “I just thought you might be interested in what nearly blew you to pieces. We’ve had the report on the explosives.”
“Go on.”
“Don’t ask me how they know this after what was left of the building, but apparently it was PE-4 explosive, several quantities linked together in a circle with detonation cord. They can work it so all pieces explode simultaneously – more effective than one single charge using the same mass of explosive.”
“So how did they do it? I thought PE-4 was very stable – you can’t set it off remotely. You need a detonator, don’t you?”
“Very good; you’ve been paying attention in class, haven’t you?” He checked the sheet he was holding. “I’d better get this right. They tape a detonator to each end of the cord ring main – the circle of explosives – and the detonators are connected by wire to an exploder, which sets off the detonators using an electrical pulse. The pulse can be generated remotely – by a radio, say – or by a timer.”
“Any clues yet as to who?”
“Well, that’s the interesting bit. Classic Special Forces MO. Not exclusively them, but certain details of the main explosion point that way. Petrol was used in this case as an accelerant, which is why it fired the car so quickly. Special Forces are usually doing this sort of stuff on the hoof, so unlikely to be carrying quantities of petrol, but other than that…”
“So, dare I ask, where does that take us?” Jo said.
“Yet again, not where we want to go, I’m afraid. This sort of demolition is a basic Special Forces skill. Every member is trained to do it and there would be at least one expert in every unit. We’re checking out whether Tom Brown was an expert in this field, although it’s almost certain that information won’t be released. And even if it was made available and we found that he wasn’t a designated expert, he’d still be capable of doing this.”
Lost Souls Page 20
