The Shadows of Justice (3 page)

Early in his career, Dan learned that an old cliché took on a new meaning in the life of a television reporter. There were storms aplenty, with only a rare few calms to precede them. And a journalist who becomes subsumed into the parallel world of police investigations only exacerbates the storms.

The ageing process wasn’t helping. He’d done his best to ignore it, but it was like trying to overlook the influence of gravity. Eventually you had to accept something was going on, however hard it may be to define.

Morning runs with Rutherford, which had been an easy half an hour, were down to an arduous twenty-five minutes. And waking in the morning afresh after a few beers the night before felt like the lost fantasy of a distant youth. School night drinking had been quietly curtailed.

The conclusion was unavoidable: the years were going silently about their insidious work.

With a quiet nod to the importance of vanity, the bathroom light had been reduced in the revealing power of its merciless wattage. But, in truth, it was a poor compensation, as effective as shouting into a hurricane.

Thus Dan would take any precious chance for a moment’s respite from the onslaught of the working day. And so, this fine Friday evening, amidst the white water rapids of a major investigation, he found a few minutes to disappear to a place where the mainstay of Plymouth’s population had found calm throughout the years.

The great rocky promontory of Plymouth Hoe was at peace tonight. Atop the line of flagpoles the standards of the world hung limp, as if they too were resting in the sanctuary of the darkness. Amidst the harbour of the Sound a couple of merchant navy ships waited at anchor, highlighted by the red and green jewels of the lights of the breakwater.

To the west, above the easy arc of the Cornish coast, a half moon was rising. The waters were dark and still, as black as oil. The dart of a lone yacht made its unhurried way towards the sanctuary of Queen Anne’s Battery, the churn of its engine softened by the distance.

Around the road that skirted the Hoe, a single low-slung car boomed its beating way. Dan followed the speeding path. It had always been a puzzle how the drivers of such cars longed to draw attention to themselves, when surely a wiser policy would be entirely the opposite.

The pillar of the Naval War Memorial watched over the Hoe, monument to the sacrifices of the fighting years, the countless lights of the city beyond. Rutherford tugged at the lead, and Dan – after securing a promise of good behaviour, however pointless – set the dog free. On one of the benches overlooking the Sound he settled and took out a photocopy of the blackmail note.

It appeared a simple demand for money, with just the one oddity. The mystery of those two, very deliberate, concluding initials.

***

The respite was a brief fifteen minutes, no more. Dan was due at Charles Cross Police Station at ten for a briefing. A report had been cut and left for the late bulletin, and the newsflash just about negotiated, albeit as a perilous voyage through rocks and storms.

After the discussion with Adam, Dan jogged back to the cordon to find exactly the cast he expected assembled. Brothers, if not in arms, then in the words and pictures of the media. Nigel was filming the scenes of crime officers going about their careful work and the policeman on guard duty. The cameraman was dressed in tatty jeans covered in white paint and a pullover upon which many a moth had grown fat. The ensemble was a sure sign of a scramble call.

Next to Nigel lurked the chubby, wild-haired, modern-day Machiavellian court jester that was Dirty El, camera fixed unerringly to his eye. He was wearing a familiar grimy, battered body warmer, bulging and misshapen with spare lenses, cloths, batteries, light meters, and all the disreputable armaments of the paparazzi kind.

“Ta for the tip off,” he chirped, without lowering the lens. “Not another snapper in sight and I’m filling me memory card full of cash.”

Behind both, sitting in the satellite truck and complaining, as ran the script of his life, brooded the champion misanthrope that was Loud. “What kind of bloody story breaks on a Friday night?” he grumbled, beard twitching in time with the moans. “I was going out for a curry. A hot one, with a nice fat naan bread.”

Loud patted his stomach. The blue, red and yellow Hawaiian shirt was already straining to contain his impressive girth. Had the garment known what a taxing fate awaited it, the manufacturers may have riveted on the buttons, rather than sewn.

Dan put on a placating smile, the kind a parent might adopt for a recalcitrant toddler. He took the talkback unit which linked the outside broadcast truck to the studio and slipped the moulded plastic coil into his ear.

Rutherford was starting to pull at the lead again, so Dan pushed him into the safety of the van. The dog immediately started growling.

“Hey, what?” Loud protested. “What’s his problem?”

“He’s got good taste,” Dan muttered.

“What?”

“I said he’s not keen on facial hair. But keep still and quiet and he probably won’t savage you.”

In Dan’s ear came the sound of the studio preparing for the newsflash. Nigel had positioned the camera with the police tape and sentry officer in the background.

“This is Emma in the Plymouth gallery,” the director’s voice broke through. “We’re on air in three minutes. We’ve got 30 seconds exactly.”

Dan grabbed a piece of paper and began scribbling notes. The newsreader’s introduction would take about five seconds. Following the broadcaster’s rough rule of three words a second, he had 75.

“On air in two and a half,” came Emma’s voice again.

“Move to your left a little please,” Nigel said. “I want to get more of the scene in the background.”

Dan shifted, but continued working on his words.

Two minutes
.

The door of a bar crashed open and shouting echoed down the street. A group of young lads had seen the satellite truck. They tumbled out and began yelling abuse. Some was of a scale that might make even Channel Four think twice about broadcasting it.

Ninety seconds
.

The men lurched over, juggling pints and bottles of beer, splashes spilling onto the pavement. One made a play of getting down on his knees to lick up the sacred liquid. Others formed a line and began dancing a conga, singing,
We’re all on the telly, we’re all on the telly
. Another ran into the background, bared his rear and patted a tune in time. The pallid, pasty flesh proudly sported a Plymouth Argyle Football Club tattoo, and a large one given the expanse of available space.

Yet again a fundamental rule of the TV business had been proven in an instant. The camera is a magnet for the insane, drunk, stupid or simply offensive. Whatever the limits of their faculties, they can somehow sense television being made from a range of several miles and are inexorably drawn towards it.

Sixty seconds
.

“We can’t go on air like this,” Nigel yelled, above the cacophony. “We’ll have to pull the broadcast.”

“No way. We don’t fail.”

Dan glanced around. Where the hell was Adam? He’d be able to gather some cops to control the men, but the detective was nowhere in sight.

Thirty seconds
.

Dan lurched for the satellite truck, reached in and grabbed Rutherford. The dog produced a movingly loving look, so Dan thrust him towards Loud. The Alsatian bared his teeth and began growling.

Twenty seconds. Dan, where are you? What the fuck are you doing?

He jogged back to the camera. At the sight of the snarling Rutherford the men backed off.

Ten seconds
.

Dan sat the dog beside him, just below the camera’s shot.

“We interrupt this broadcast to bring you a newsflash,” came Craig, the presenter’s voice.

Cue Dan
.

“In the last hour, a well-known young woman has been kidnapped from this street in Plymouth,” he intoned. “She’s Annette Newman, daughter of Roger, the millionaire entrepreneur famed for pulling himself up from one of the city’s toughest areas to found the Roger’s Rugs empire. The police believe the kidnappers got away in a white van. Its registration plate ended in the letters TN. If anyone spots such a van, they’re asked to call 999 immediately.”

***

A young couple walked past, hand in hand. They stopped by the war memorial to steal a kiss.

The woman bent to pat Rutherford, but hesitated. “Does he bite?”

“Only undesirables,” Dan replied. “You’ll be fine.”

The dog accepted a few seconds stroking in that disinterested manner of his, before trotting back to the bench.

“You did well with the newsflash,” Dan told him. “Operation Anti-Chav went impressively smoothly. Now, I need to ask you a question – how do you think I did with Claire?”

Rutherford lay down and let out a sizeable yawn.

“Thanks, dog. But you may have a point.”

After the broadcast, Claire had stopped at the satellite van. She was carrying a weight of papers and was on her way to Charles Cross to prepare for the briefing. They exchanged an awkward peck of a kiss, then stepped back into silence.

It was one of those emotional stalemate moments, high in the order of human embarrassments. Two people who knew each other so well, but still had no idea what to do next.

“Well?” she asked, eventually.

“Well what?” he replied, with a little shuffle.

“You know what.”

“If I knew what I wouldn’t be asking what.”

Claire sighed. “Will we have a chance to catch up in the next few days?”

The shuffle became a jig. “I hope so.”

“But?”

“This case is going to be busy.”

“Is that all?”

“Yes,” said Dan, in a voice that sounded thin, even to him.

“We are going to have to talk sometime.”

The voice dieted further. “Yes.”

“Have a think, if that’s not beyond your emotional intelligence,” she replied, patiently. “I’ll see you in the briefing.”

On the subject of which, it was time to make for Charles Cross. Dan got up from the bench, stretched, and took one more look at the blackmail note.

We wAnt CasH A million USed notes 4 AnnET WE
call Soon 2 arrange DeLivery

The letters had been cut from a series of newspapers. The fonts familiar; the tactic a traditional one. It all looked straightforward enough, a standard kidnapping for money. A mundane crime of which the world saw far too many examples each and every year.

It was just the curiosity of the final line of the note. The letters
PP
which had been placed there, and in such a pointed manner that it could never have happened by anything other than very deliberate design.

The back gate to Charles Cross Police Station is an imposing one, heavy with steel bars and topped by razor wire. The barrier grinds open notoriously slowly, and with a persistent groaning and shuddering which harks of a great beast begrudgingly awoken.

The locking mechanism emits the dull clunking required to ensure a visitor is well aware any attempt to hurry it would be the most pointless of follies. Spotlights illuminate the approach and CCTV cameras scrutinise those who come and go with unblinking, electronic eyes.

It’s a point sometimes debated amongst the more philosophical of the policing community, whether this is really necessary or more down to psychology. The gate makes an unmistakable statement that the might of the law lies beyond. For anyone brought here as a suspect, the intimidating entrance could be said to mark the first softening up of the interrogation process.

Be all that as it may, the gate is habitually closed. So it was a surprise for Dan to find it wide open as he drove along the back road leading to the police station. He edged the car in and looked for a space to park. For this time of night, the compound was unusually busy. He taxied to the very back and manoeuvred into a narrow slot beside a couple of motorbikes.

As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, shapes began to assume forms, detaching themselves from the darkness. Standing quietly by the four police cars nearest the entrance was a circle of officers. Each was checking a submachine gun. Black and snub nosed, the weights of deadly metal clicked smoothly under careful fingers. Heavy crescents of magazines were loaded with gleaming bronze cylinders. Stocks were extended and folded again, sights lifted to eyes. The flitting red flies of laser dots darted over the blackness of the walls.

Each of the four cars was angled towards the gate. A radio buzzed with a tinny voice, the words lost in the background traffic of the city. One of the officers, a burly sergeant, replied in a gruff voice.

“Firearms teams standing by. We’re good to go the second you get a trace.”

***

On the top floor of the five that make up the block that is Charles Cross lies the Major Incident Room, or MIR. There’s the option of the lift to reach it, but it’s small, cramped, and takes considerably longer than walking up the stairs. The station gossip has it that it’s a deliberate ploy, to ensure the sedentary, desk-bound cops get at least some exercise in a day.

Large and long, the MIR looks out on the city and over Charles Church – the bombed out memorial to the Blitz of Plymouth. Dan slipped to the back of the room, a little detached from the bear pit these briefings could become, and perched on the windowsill.

The congregation reacted to him in its usual way: a mix of hostility and acceptance, roughly divided in equal proportions. Adam’s patronage was an effective shield, but many still felt a journalist had no place within another highly sensitive case.

The detective standing just a metre away was a devoted member of the antis. He recoiled at the arrival of the interloper and adopted a glower akin to a gathering storm. The young man had a militarily short haircut and was squat and powerful, with an anvil-like head. He radiated hostility as hot as an electric fire.

Dan busied himself with winding his ever-erratic watch. The tired old Rolex said the time was twenty to ten, so it was probably around five to. Rutherford had been left in the car. It was stretching the limited strain of Adam’s patience to bring the dog into the briefing.

Already the MIR had filled with around forty officers, a mix of detectives and uniformed police. It was a testament to one of their detective chief inspector’s idiosyncrasies, an insistence on punctuality. The felt boards he habitually used to set out the patterns of a case had also been retrieved from dusty storage and set up at the front of the room. Chatter rumbled, snatches of discussions about the case, theories being aired.

Adam walked in at just before ten, followed by Claire, and the room immediately quietened. “Let’s get moving,” he said. “We haven’t got much to go on at the mo’. We need to start finding something – and fast.”

Claire began handing out briefing papers. Detective Anvil Head hesitated and pointedly caught Adam’s eye with a question, before reluctantly passing them on.

“We’re dealing with at least two people,” Adam continued.
“A witness saw someone inside the van. He reckons they opened the back doors and helped drag Annette in.”

The young detective was taking notes. Tempting though it was, Dan managed to refrain from commenting on how
siezed
would traditionally be spelt.

“Secondly, our ‘crims’ are calculating. The ransom demand was brought to us by the barman of The Stars, the place along the street from where Annette was taken. It was given to him by a vagrant. The tramp says he was approached by a man and given twenty quid to take the note to the bar.”

“Bit of a risk, wasn’t it?” a woman at the front asked. “He might just not have bothered.”

“The kidnapper thought of that. He told the tramp the barman would give him another twenty when he’d handed over the note.” Adam waited, let the moment run. “The tramp also got a bottle of cheap whisky. It’s put him well away in drinkland. All he’s been able to tell us is that the guy was wearing shades and a baseball cap.”

Adam’s mobile rang. He held up an apologetic hand, paced over to the corner of the MIR and answered.

Dan used the interlude to flick through the briefing. On the second page was a black and white photograph of Annette, a classical passport shot. Dark hair trailed down her back and her features were shaped in the sort of mystical look the Mona Lisa might have accepted as a decent impersonation.

There was something else about the picture. It was nothing that could be distilled into a thought or description. No attempt to articulate the shape of her face, colour of complexion, or the warmth of the young woman’s eyes. Frail words didn’t suffice.

Dan tapped a pen on his notepad. It took several seconds before he realised.

It was the joy of embarking on an adventure. The anticipation of striding out into the world, to absorb the understandings it would whisper, and to parade all that she was going to offer to the waiting audience.

As esoteric as it may be, it was that which filled Annette’s features: the simple relishing of life.

***

Adam ended his call and turned back to the MIR. “Deputy Chief Constable,” he said. “To helpfully point out the case is going to be all over the press and a fast result would be appreciated. Those weren’t his actual words, by the way.”

Laughter tickled the room. Brian ‘The Tank’ Flood was a former military man, renowned for being as diplomatic as a bare knuckle boxer with a score to settle.

Claire held up a copy of the ransom demand. “Does anyone have any thoughts about the bizarre
PP
part?”

Anvil Head said, “It’s often used to mean PayPal.” Some of the older officers looked bemused, so he added, “It’s a way of transferring money online.”

“You reckon that could link in with the ransom demand, Steve?” Claire asked.

“It’s a possibility.”

Dan was finding it hard to shift his look from the picture of Annette. But he must have been half-listening, because he realised he’d snorted.

“You disagree?” Claire prompted, amusement in her voice.

“No… well, yes, I do. Whoever heard of a ransom demand via PayPal?”

“It’s the modern world, mate,” Steve replied, with more wit than might have been expected from his appearance. “It’s called the in-ter-net.”

“And our kidnappers are called cle-ver. Unlike some people,” Dan added, pointedly. “How long would it take to trace them if they used PayPal? There’s something more to those initials.”

The Anvil was beginning to glow. “It’s a simple kidnapping case, mate. You make it sound like some film. And who are you again, by the way?”

A couple of sniggers rose in the room. And the reporter and amateur investigator, who had told himself time after time not to rise to the baits of his complicated life, gleefully clamped his teeth on another.

“I’m the man who was solving crimes when you were still fantasising about starting to shave,” Dan explained.

“Ok,” Adam intervened. “That’ll do.”

“A quick bit of research throws up lots of other possibilities,” Claire said. “A couple of bits of musical, mathematical and computing shorthand, signing a letter on someone’s behalf, and a few linguistic and scientific phrases. We’re looking at them now.”

Adam stepped forward once more and listed the other branches of the inquiry. Roger Newman was being interviewed, to see if he had made any enemies who might want to harm him or Annette.

No forensic evidence, fingerprints or DNA had been recovered from the ransom note. The scene of the kidnapping yielded various strands of hair and plenty of fibres, but they could have come from a thousand passers-by.

A kidnapping expert from Scotland Yard, Katrina Harper, would be here within the hour. She was a veteran of such cases.

The reaction to that was intriguing. Everyone knew the name and greeted it with admiration. A couple of men along from Dan nudged each other and exchanged looks of approval, both professional and personal.

“Who’s she?” Dan whispered to one.

“She does all the big kidnaps. Damn good at them, too.”

“I’ve never heard of her.”

“Quite,” the man replied.

“Ah.” Dan jotted a thoughtful note to his pad and asked, “What does she look like?”

“You’ll know her, don’t worry about that.”

To round off the briefing, there was a rapid discussion on where the kidnappers may have taken Annette. They would have prepared a hideout, the consensus had it. Probably somewhere remote, but close enough to reach before police patrols were on the roads. Working on a maximum of a mile a minute, it meant within 30 miles of Plymouth. A sizeable section of the open tracts of Dartmoor was within reach. As was much of the classical Devon countryside of the South Hams – all fields, woods and secluded coastline – and large parts of south and east Cornwall.

“Too big an area to think about searching,” was Claire’s summary. “We’ve got to narrow it down.”

“So,” Adam rallied, “we need to build up some momentum. Don’t wait, keep working. Don’t hesitate, keep moving. Don’t be deterred, keep trying. Work your patch, your informants and your instincts. Be restless and relentless. Follow that trail, trace that lead and sniff out that scent.”

He gestured to the felt boards. A large picture of Annette had been placed in the centre.

“She’s a young girl. She’ll be frightened witless. She’s in danger and it’s down to us to save her. Her fate’s in our hands. Go to it, team.”

The energy of the words infused the detectives. The invisible allies of purpose and belief, zeal and determination were riding alongside.

Some officers made for the phones or computers in the corner, others the door. But it burst open before anyone could leave.

A flushed young man, wearing a T-shirt and with flying wavy hair, stumbled in and panted, “We’ve got the ransom call.”