Everyone Lies (37 page)

‘I did order the tests, and I did request the tox from Snowstorm. But you’ve got to ask yourself why someone would consider that a
bad
thing.’ She shrugged. ‘But since the intel was delivered anonymously we can’t exactly ask, can we, sir?’

Simms looked into his eyes, watching closely for his reaction, and thought she saw a shadow of uncertainty.

‘I’m being followed.’

‘You’re bloody paranoid.’ He spat the words.

‘The man who took this—’ she glanced at the photograph ‘—has been dogging my footsteps for days.’

He seemed appalled, but not out of concern her. All Spry wanted was a quiet life – a nice, tidy tie-up of a slightly perplexing case, and she had messed it all up. ‘What the hell have you stirred up, Simms?’

‘I don’t know yet,’ she said. ‘Give me a couple more days, I might have an answer.’

‘You are going home,’ he said.

‘No,’ she said. ‘If you send me home it’ll look like there’s something in this shit.’

‘Kate,’ Spry said, ‘you need to go home.’

It was the first time he’d used her given name in the entire interview, and she quailed inwardly, waiting for the hammer blow.

‘The photograph is splashed all over the local press.’

The room seemed to shift sideways. She bent forward to catch her breath, and discovered the photograph still in her hand.

‘And you
still
say I’m paranoid?’ She spun the image onto his desk.

‘Look,’ he said. ‘You have the name of the victim. You have the perpetrator. That might be enough to bury this—’

‘Bury
what
?’ she said. ‘There is no case to answer.’

‘Maybe not, but you confused your priorities and you made bad choices – bringing Fennimore in, of all people.’

‘Without Fennimore’s advice, none of this would have been exposed.’

The look on his face said he fervently wished it hadn’t. ‘I want you to go home and think on the choices you’ve made. You ignored protocols, disobeyed direct instructions and orders, brought in someone the Assistant Chief would slap an ASBO on, if he could – you’re lucky he didn’t suspend you.’

Simms felt a spike of fear. Spry wouldn’t talk about suspension unless it was a real possibility. ‘Sir,’ she said. ‘I have work to do – we don’t have Marta’s full name yet, there are lines of inquiry I need to follow up.’

‘Which your team will do in your absence. The official line is, you’re exhausted, and you need a day or two at home with your family.’

He really seemed to think that they would get on with their investigation, and Humberside would look into the murder, and everything would be kept nice and simple and clean.

‘I believe there’s a link between Marta and the Hull murder victim.’

He huffed. ‘Well, you’re on your own there.’

Fear turned to anger. ‘Haven’t I been from the start of all this?’

He flushed darkly. ‘You forget yourself, Chief Inspector.’

‘To hell with it, I’m going to say it – there’s a serial abductor and rapist on the loose, who likes to torture his victims. Marta and the girl buried under the factory floor – they were probably murdered by the same man. Sir, I want it on record that I think this is the work of a serial killer.’

The silence roared in her ears. He looked embarrassed for her, and she became defensive.

‘It isn’t just me, sir. I spoke to the forensic psychologist – if you let me access my email—’

‘Stop!’ He raised a trembling finger. ‘That is
enough
. You will go home voluntarily, or you will go home under suspension.’

‘What?’ She stared at him, shocked.

‘Orders of the ACC.’ He seemed calmer, having the full force of ACC Gifford’s wrath to back him up. He went on, quietly and reasonably, ‘Meanwhile, I will ensure that George Howard is formally charged with Marta’s abduction, rape and murder.’

He waited until she was on her way out of the door, with every person in the main office straining to hear.

‘Oh, and, Kate,’ he said, ‘stay the hell away from Nick Fennimore.’

37

Simms stepped out of the building into darkness and a cold so intense it made her head ache. In the hours since her arrest, the sun had gone down, the temperature had dropped by another five degrees, and six inches of snow covered the ground. She had taken a side exit to the car park from habit, remembering too late that her car was still parked in the city centre. She cursed – she didn’t know the security codes for the doors, so the only way back in was by the front entrance, and there was bound to be media presence. But if she walked along the rear of the building and followed the road out, keeping to the far pavement, she might just slip past the gathered vultures unnoticed. She turned up the collar of her coat and began walking, her legs still weak from her confrontation with Spry. She felt dazed by the turn of events; not that she’d expected praise and a shiny new badge of acceptability, but this was a suspension in all but name.

She heard the dull thrum of a car engine and looked over her shoulder. A car rolled quietly over the compacted snow, headlights off, heading down the lane she was on. The car park’s security lighting gave an Irn Bru cast to the snowfall, but even reflected off the snow it wasn’t strong enough to see into the car.
No headlights.
Simms faced forward, the toes of her boots kicking up the powdery fall. She saw a gap between two parked cars and dodged into the next lane. The car accelerated, its wheels spinning in the snow.

Simms’s heart began to thud hard; she was twenty yards from the building, with at least another fifty to go before she reached the road, and not another soul in the car park. She hesitated, uncertain what to do next, and the car skidded around the end of the row, heading straight for her, juddered to a halt at an angle and stalled. The driver’s door opened and Simms braced herself for a fight.

A plump, pink-faced creature emerged, wearing a Fair Isle trapper hat with the earflaps down. It was DC Moran.

‘
Jeez
, Ella, don’t you know not to creep up on a woman in a deserted car park?’

‘Sorry, Boss,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want to use the lights – there’s twenty-odd journos hanging around and I didn’t want to attract attention. I thought you might need a lift.’

Simms slid down as they passed the gaggle of reporters, trying to gain shelter from the snow in the overhang of the entrance, but Moran’s hat was a good decoy and nobody gave them a second look. They turned left onto the road and set off at a crawl over the fresh snowfall.

‘What did Spry tell you?’ Simms asked, when they were safely on the A56, heading for the city centre.

‘That you’re taking a few days’ leave. We’re to work on, and you’ll tie up any loose ends when you get back.’

‘I take it nobody’s falling for that?’

The detective’s forehead crinkled a moment. ‘There’s not that many of us still around,’ she said, neatly evading the question.

‘Has he charged Howard?’

‘He told DS Renwick to do it.’

It figured – Spry wouldn’t want his name anywhere near this, not with photographs of the lead investigator in her scanties circulating in the media. She cracked the window, suddenly needing more air.

Moran glanced at her, but didn’t comment. ‘Take a look in the glovebox,’ she said.

Simms flipped the compartment open; there were several precisely folded A4 sheets lying under a small LED torch and a Green Flag card. Nothing else – no sweet wrappers, tickets, receipts, pens or plastic carrier bags. She drew out the A4 sheets.

‘The calls list from Marta’s mobile,’ Moran said.

Simms stared at the printout in her hand. ‘How the hell did you get this?’

‘Service provider,’ she said, and Simms knew from the vague way she’d answered that she’d deliberately misunderstood. ‘The phone’s registered to Sally Hobbes.’

Simms turned to face her.

‘She’s ninety-six and lives in a nursing home – Alzheimer’s,’ Moran said.

Simms slumped in her seat. Why was she even bothering? Spry had taken charge of the investigation, Howard had been charged. It didn’t matter that the images of her with Fennimore were bogus – in Gifford’s eyes she was a liability, and he would not tolerate that. Humberside would deal with their body; she would establish Marta’s identity. If there was a link – and she was certain there was – nobody was interested. It could take days or weeks for the forensic evidence to come out, and even if it proved her right, Gifford would make damn sure someone else was tasked with the job. She ached with tiredness and was sick with worry about Kieran’s reaction to the photographs.

‘Boss?’ Moran said, and Simms realized that she had tuned her out. She stirred herself, breathing in the cold sharp air and making an effort for the young detective more than for herself.

‘Yeah. Yes, go ahead, Ella, I’m listening.’

‘One of the calls on the list was made a few minutes before the surveillance camera picked Marta up leaving the restaurant on the night of the murder.’

Simms snapped upright – Livebait restaurant was the last place Marta had been seen alive. ‘We need a reverse trace on all these numbers. Prioritize the one Marta dialled from the restaurant; let me know as soon as you have it.’

‘Already got it.’

Simms shook her head. ‘How?’

‘Well …’ They pulled up at a set of lights and Moran tugged one of the earflaps of her hat. ‘The first bit of the number looked like a Firm’s mobile. So I called the switchboard and said someone had rung me, but they hadn’t left a message and I thought it might be urgent to the ongoing investigation.’ She swallowed. ‘It belongs to a DC Parrish; he’s on the Drugs Squad.’

Drugs Squad
, Simms thought.
Operation Snowstorm
.

The lights changed; Moran drove on, Simms staring through the windscreen in stunned silence.

‘Talk to Sergeant Renwick, ask him to request the reverse traces on the other numbers.’

Moran threw her an anxious look and Simms said, ‘Ella, I know Renwick was on the Drugs Squad, but he’s okay.’

Moran didn’t answer.

‘What?’ Simms asked.

Moran pulled over to the kerbside, as if she didn’t trust herself to drive and tell Simms what she had to say. She left the engine running and folded her hands neatly in her lap. ‘I couldn’t understand why we hadn’t had the IMEI number for Marta’s phone,’ she said, ‘so I called the lab myself, said I was you.’ She glanced quickly into Simms’s face. ‘They told me they’d already sent the IMEI. I said, “When?” They said, “With the DNA results.”’

‘That was Tuesday,’ Simms said stupidly. She couldn’t process the information: two days ago, Renwick told her that the lab was backed up, hadn’t had a chance to try to retrieve the number, said he’d call them and give them a rollocking. She felt suddenly cold. Renwick had lied to her.

Moran spoke, eyes forward, her voice wobbling with nerves. ‘Boss, I don’t know what to do with this.’

In truth, neither did Simms. ‘Were there any voicemail messages on the phone?’

Moran nodded. ‘The service provider sent an MP3 file, but some of them are in a foreign language – Russian or something.’

‘Okay,’ Simms said. ‘We’ll need a translator – social services might be able to help.’

‘I’ve got a mate who works for a refugee charity,’ Moran said. ‘I’ll give him a bell.’

Simms nodded, approving. ‘Tell them to invoice me; mark it personal.’ That would keep it under the radar for a short while longer.

Moran moved off again, and ten minutes later they had arrived in a side street at the back of Deansgate. Simms directed her to the humped white shape of her Mondeo.

‘Talk to no one,’ she said. ‘Not even Spry.’ She took a business card from her shoulder bag and scribbled her home address on the back. ‘As soon as you have anything, call me on my mobile – anytime – middle of the night if that’s when the news comes in.’ As the constable’s fingers closed on the card, she held on to it a moment longer, looking into the younger woman’s kindly eyes. ‘Ella, remember what I said: you report back to me, and me only.’

38

‘From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.’

S
OCRATES

The local TV news was showing the loop of Suzie Fennimore ageing up from ten to fifteen years old. A commentator gave a quick rundown of the disappearance of Suzie and her mother five years earlier, and the discovery almost half a year later of Rachel Fennimore’s body in a pond on the Essex Marshes.

Nick Fennimore sat on the sofa in his hotel suite, his laptop open on the coffee table in front of him. All it took was a quick Google search to find out that the ‘Grieving Criminalist’ – yes, ‘criminalist’ – had recently set up a Facebook page to ‘reach out’ to his lost daughter. Suddenly Suzie’s account was receiving hundreds of hits and had become a target for the curious and the disturbed and the sick, wanting to ‘friend’ him.

He dumped his suitcase on the bed and began emptying his wardrobe of clothes.

His mobile phone rang – Josh Brown. He bounced the call. If Josh had fresh information, he didn’t want to know; he was done with the investigation. Kate Simms had also tried his number, and his secretary, and Cooper, the pathologist. He switched the phone off and threw it onto the bed.

The TV newscaster spoke over his animated age-progression of Suzie. The next sequence showed footage of the crime scene where Marta’s body had been found; then the photograph of Kate Simms changing her blouse in the back of her car, Fennimore ogling her.

A rap at the door. Journalists.

Fuck.

He stood still, but the TV gave him away. The knocking came again, louder, whoever it was hammering on the door as if the building was on fire.

Fennimore dropped a battered paperback into his suitcase, strode to the door and flung it wide. The man on the other side took a step back. It was Joe González in his on-duty uniform.

He held up both hands. ‘Woah! Take it easy, Nick.’

‘What d’you want?’

‘I have messages, but your room phone is disconnected.’

He’d yanked the landline jack out of the wall in his room after it rang for the seventh time – every one from a journalist.