Cut to the Bone (19 page)

‘Where’s Brennan? Thought she’d be dragging Dan in. Like a cat with a dead bird. Or rat,’ said Zain.

‘She’s interviewing.’

‘Still? She must have interviewed half of London by now. She going to start on the two million psychos stalking Ruby?’

‘No, she’s interviewing, as in applicants. Hope signed off an expansion of staffing, so we’re getting a set of detective constables.’

‘How? Is someone shitting diamonds and giving them to him?’

‘There have been some acrimonious allegations and confrontations. About us using Met resources. So Hope applied for budget a couple of months ago, and the home secretary signed it off.’

‘Nice,’ said Zain.

It was murky, not nice. She didn’t like opaque management; she wanted the sort of transparency Julie Trent gave her. She had managed to grab her DCS that morning. Trent claimed she was suffering from sciatica, and had been signed off work by her GP.

‘I know it’s tough, just play along. Do what you have to, and focus on the case. Promise me you won’t care about the politics?’ Trent had said.

Kate never lied, so hadn’t responded to that. Instead, she’d said, ‘I’m going to ask you again. You might not be able to say now, but I’ll come and see you soon.’

She wanted that conversation with her boss, to find out what had gone on between her and Hope, and why her boss had really ended up at home with a fake illness. Not once in four months had Trent mentioned issues with her back. Sciatica didn’t just happen, Kate was sure of it.

‘Shall we head up?’ she said.

‘You want a coffee first? I don’t think I can handle Dan Grant without being pumped full of something.’

‘No, I had some before I left home.’

Zain followed her out of the cafeteria with his coffee, its aroma then filling the lift as the doors closed. He looked her over from where he stood in one corner; she felt his eyes trailing over her. The heels, the legs in sheer tights, the maroon dress falling to above her knees. She had her jacket hanging over her wrist, her arms bare in the sleeveless outfit. The shape of her body on display.

She turned her face and Zain was caught out in his appraisal. Kate saw his eyes on her calf muscles. He looked up at her. Unembarrassed. His mouth twisted into a half smile. She was conscious of his judgement of her body. She hadn’t been to her mixed martial arts or Pilates for a couple of months now. She would have to go back to classes, as soon as she got a break.

Kate gave Zain a direct stare, putting her jacket on and shaking her hair out over the back. As the lift doors opened, she walked two paces in front of him, her shoes clacking on the hard floor of the hospital.

Jerk, she thought.

Dan was sitting up in bed, wrapped in a blue dressing gown.

‘You have to wait,’ he said to them.

‘Why? So your doctor can save you again?’ said Zain. He pulled up a chair, leaning back into it, then put his feet up on Dan’s bed.

Kate stood at the foot of the bed, looking through Dan’s vitals on a clipboard. The room smelled like the ward outside. Old food and decay, with an overriding hint of bleach and alcohol.

‘What’s the hold-up?’ said Zain.

‘I’m not speaking to you without my brief,’ said Dan.

Zain rubbed his eyes, slurping his coffee.

Swallowing his irritation, Kate thought. ‘You are, of course, entitled to have legal representation, now that you are in our custody,’ she said.

‘Oh, yeah, silly me, I forgot,’ said Zain. ‘So where is this lowlife?’

Dan looked to Kate; he was afraid, shifting his body subtly away from Zain. She had seen him do the same back at his flat, when they had first met him.

Dan looked younger than she knew he was; his widened eyes looked infantile. Her instinct was to reach out to him, comfort him, save him from boorish Harris. Until she remembered the texts, the emails, the stories of dismemberment, the collected underwear.

‘What you got on under that dressing gown?’ said Zain.

Dan didn’t look at him, pulled it tighter, bent his legs under the blanket, pulled them close to his chest.

‘How long do we have to wait?’ said Kate.

‘He said he’d be here for ten.’

There was a knock on the door. Dan’s legal representative came in. He was dressed in a tailored suit, had a fake tan and very square white teeth. He held out a hand to Kate.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ he said.

‘Fuck me,’ said Zain.

‘Nice to see you again, too, Detective Harris.’

Zain didn’t hide his feelings as Karl Rourke took a seat at Dan’s bedside.

Chapter Fifty-five

Michelle Cable looked at the box on her desk, read the note again.

‘Sorry. Z. xx.’

How did he manage it? He must have picked it up as soon as the store opened, dropped it off, then headed to the hospital to meet Riley. That took effort, sincerity. She sighed, unsure now of her own emotions.

She had spent the night unloading to her husband. She had gone home to find her children asleep, and she had felt something inside her tear apart. She hadn’t seen them since breakfast, wouldn’t speak to them until the morning now. She had lost twenty-four hours of their lives.

Somehow she made that Harris’s fault. She should have left early, on time. Even when there was a case, she did that. Riley understood; they all did. She often logged on from home, after the kids were asleep, once Aiden was vegging in front of the TV or playing a computer game.

Only last night she had stayed in the office, because
he
, Harris, had made her feel inadequate. Because
he
made her feel as though leaving on time would be some measure of failure.

A night of complaining had followed – of advice, of imagining what she would say, how she would prove her worth. She had come into work armoured, shielded, armed. Only to find he had sued for peace already.

The tension bottled up inside escaped through her sighs.

She opened the box. She knew she should wait, share it, keep it for a special occasion. But having a shit day at work, getting stressed by office politics, and then coming out the other end, well, that was an occasion, wasn’t it?

Michelle chewed on the toffee, letting it fill corners of her mouth, under her tongue, savouring its feel against her palate, before finally swallowing.

Harris was still the enemy. But she decided to sheath her swords. For now.

She went to work instead, looking through Dan’s hard drives. They had been dropped off by Forensics earlier, under Rob Pelt’s instructions. She marvelled at how it had become the norm to have multiple hard drives. Made it twice as complicated to get results.

Although Harris probably had some software that did it in a nanosecond.

She put another piece of toffee into her mouth. It was like Pavlov’s dog, she thought. Eventually, she would think of Harris, and her mouth would taste toffee. Not yet, though.

An hour later, Michelle was on the phone to Pelt, who was still at Dan’s flat.

‘Nice one,’ he said when she told him.

‘Can you have a look, see if you can find the paperwork?’

‘Do we need it?’ he said.

‘You know Riley; she’ll ask. I’ve only found references to it, not the exact location.’

‘I’ll try one of these boxes; it must be here amongst this junk. How did you find out?’

‘The good old-fashioned way. I checked his Facebook, Twitter, some of his YouTube videos and files on his computer.’

‘Who needs spooky stuff, right?’

‘Call me when you find it,’ she said.

Michelle flexed her fingers, cracked her knuckles, then started looking again. There was a faint hope, just a glimmer, but she might just be on her way to finding where Ruby was.

Chapter Fifty-six

Zain set up the digital camera to record, tilting it until he had the perfect angle. Karl Rourke sat by Dan. He had a tablet in his hands.

‘The new Surface,’ said Zain. ‘Expensive bit of kit. How does it run?’

‘Fine,’ said Rourke.

‘So how come you’re here, anyway? I thought he wasn’t your client anymore?’ said Zain.

‘Later,’ Kate said, interrupting them.

She took a seat on the opposite side of the table to Rourke, with Zain next to her.

They were in an interview room at Southwark police station, on Borough High Street. Zain had been reluctant to use them, said they were already complaining about the resources she had pulled from them.

‘They get paid for anything they do for us,’ she had reminded him. ‘And we get priority. For the moment.’

Dan was now dressed in jeans and a T-shirt of thin material. She could see the outlines of his ribs through it. He had asked for a wheelchair to transport him from his hospital room, and was limping when he walked. She didn’t know if he was exaggerating, trying to garner sympathy, or if he was still suffering from the aftereffects of his overdose.

It all seemed suspicious to her. He had collapsed in the reception area of his building, where he would be seen and helped. Why not alone in his flat?

‘I was home all night. I was having a party, with my friends,’ Dan was insisting.

‘No you weren’t,’ said Kate. ‘CCTV showed you left your building at 5 p.m., and didn’t return until around 8 p.m. on the day Ruby disappeared. You left again at 9.30 p.m., and didn’t come back until just before 11 a.m. the morning after she disappeared.’

‘CCTV is lying. I was home.’

‘The security guards also confirmed what we saw on camera,’ she said.

‘Those illegal immigrants? Did you threaten them with deportation or something?’

‘Are you accusing us of corruption?’ she said.

‘Yes. I saw the hacking trial. You’re all at it, getting backhanders. I should’ve done that.’

‘Are you offering to bribe a police officer?’ she said.

‘Go on, then, pretty boy, bribe me. See what happens,’ said Zain.

Dan looked at Rourke, who was making notes with a digi-pen on his tablet. He seemed bored. Dan turned back to them, but avoided looking at Zain.

‘Can you name these friends you were with?’ Kate asked.

‘I was with him, with Karl. Tell them, I was with you.’

Rourke was obviously startled at the sound of his name, taking a few seconds to rewind what Dan had said. He smiled apologetically. Shook his head.

‘Your lawyer can’t be your alibi, you dumb fuck,’ said Zain.

‘Is that an official term, DS Harris?’ said Rourke.

‘Well, speak to your client. Are you his alibi?’ said Zain.

‘No. Dan, tell them where you were,’ said Rourke.

Dan pretended he didn’t understand, his eyes widening, then narrowing again.

‘I wasn’t with Ruby, that’s all they need to know. No comment,’ he said.

‘What?’ she said.

‘No comment. To everything,’ said Dan.

Great, thought Kate. He definitely had something still in his system. And junkies on ‘no comment’ highs were her favourite.

‘Fine, let’s just put you in a prison cell. With someone who likes pretty boys,’ said Zain, sneering at him.

‘You don’t fucking scare me,’ muttered Dan. ‘This is fucking bullying and harassment.’

‘Are you using abusive language to a police officer?’ Zain said.

‘No comment,’ Dan said, looking at Kate.

‘He didn’t mean to swear, or accuse you of bullying. He is under obvious duress, fresh from a hospital bed. Might still have morphine in his blood,’ said Rourke.

‘You mean class A drugs. That’s a criminal offence right there. Who’s your dealer?’ Zain was doing nothing to conceal his loathing, Kate observed. She didn’t believe in playing good cop, bad cop. She believed in intelligent cops using their experience to get results. Harris seemed intent on being a cardboard villain, and stressing out her interviewee.

‘Did you realise the amount of drugs you took would lead you to overdose?’ she said.

‘No comment.’

‘Guilty conscience?’ said Zain.

‘No guilty conscience here. I didn’t hurt Ruby.’

‘Let me read you examples of the messages you sent to Miss Day,’ Kate said.

She read some of his emails and texts. His face was shiny with sweat when she had finished, scarlet patches all over it. Rourke had stopped doodling; he was looking disgusted.

‘That’s not me, not from me, no comment,’ said Dan, in a whisper.

‘You sent these to Ruby. Are you saying somebody else had access to your email account?’ she said.

‘Yes. No comment.’

‘They were sent from your computer, you dumb –’ began Zain.

‘Shut up, you just shut the fuck up. What? You’re going to punch me now?’ said Dan. He looked at Rourke, who looked back at his screen, fidgeting.

‘Was Ruby frightened of you?’ said Kate.

‘No, she loved me.’

‘Did you threaten her?’

‘No.’

‘These messages are very threatening. If I was Ruby, I would be terrified of you.’

‘Conjecture,’ said Rourke, half-heartedly.

‘You’re not in court, Rourke. Are you really a lawyer, even?’ said Zain.

‘I am a qualified solicitor, yes.’

‘Joker of all trades, eh?’ said Zain. ‘Do MINDNET know you’re here?’

‘Why did you send her these messages?’ Kate said to Dan.

‘I didn’t.’

‘Mr Grant, they were sent from your computer, using your private email. Unless someone hacked into your system, or compromised your account . . .’

‘Yes, they must have.’

‘We know you opened Ruby’s replies to these messages, sent directly to you. Did you not then realise your account had been hacked?’

‘Detective, how did you get access to my client’s emails? Have you got a court order?’ said Rourke.

‘Yep, check it out, legal eagle,’ said Zain, pushing an envelope across the table to Rourke.

The benefits of Hope. He had judges on speed dial; they got warrants signed off in minutes. No need for applications to court.

‘And your text messages? Saying that you would destroy Ruby if she left you? Is that what happened? Did Ruby leave you? And did you destroy her?’

‘No, no comment, I didn’t harm her. I just said it, I was angry, I didn’t do it.’

‘Do what?’

‘Anything.’

‘Like scaring young girls, do you?’ said Zain.