Page 47

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

T wo days later, DI Cheryl Spiers sauntered into Billy’s bar and narrowed her eyes at Nina, though the man who followed behind her – PC Joshua MacLeod – greeted her with a mile-wide smile.

Nina fidgeted in her seat. Despite Robert’s convincing arguments on why they needed police officers to take down another cop, Nina still found it difficult to jump onboard with people who’d believed she’d killed someone.

Cheryl dropped her bag on the table, then nodded at Billy. ‘You got a Tennent’s?’

‘Didn’t you see the big fucking red T outside?’ Billy retorted, scowling, before he fetched a glass.

The man had offered to shut his bar for this meeting, but Nina didn’t want to inconvenience Billy more than they already had. Besides, it was just the four of them this time.

Instead of responding to Billy’s barb, Cheryl shot Robert a glare. ‘After this, you’ll need something much stronger.’ She then plopped down in the chair directly opposite Nina.

Cheryl, with her pinned-up hair, her ironed office shirt and suit, could’ve fit right in with the finance crowd. Except her eyes searched for trouble, not money.

Joshua draped his coat over the chair and took a seat next to Cheryl. ‘This oddly feels like an interview.’

‘Because it is.’ Cheryl leaned in, studying Nina and then Robert. ‘What part of stay hidden don’t you numpties get?’

‘Stay hidden and wait for Dickheadson to solve the murders?’ Nina too leaned in, ready for a face-off. The last two days of waiting had been absolute agony. And now being asked to stay hidden? No way in hell would she comply with that order.

Joshua placed a hand on Cheryl’s shoulder and tugged her away from lunging at Nina. ‘Arguing isn’t going to help. Get to the point, Cheryl.’

Cheryl reached into her bag, then pulled out a notepad and a blue file. ‘Who told you about Dickinson’s involvement?’

For the first time, Robert spoke. ‘Candace Matthews. But please don’t log her in the file. She’s a victim and thus doesn’t have the legal paperwork to stay in the UK. Besides, I saw him there, too.’

Cheryl and Joshua listened to Robert’s recollection of the night he’d found Candace. Instead of agreeing with their conclusion of Dickheadson’s involvement, Cheryl grimaced. ‘How do you know this isn’t a set-up? She might be Daisy’s friend, but everyone has a price.’

Joshua reached for the file and flipped it open. ‘What she means is that this entire thing is bigger than we thought. Instead of reading the reports and evidence, which could trigger an alarm for Dickheadson, we traced the procedural chain.’

Cheryl turned her notepad around so they could see what she’d noted. ‘We began with the dispatcher who answered the 999 call that night. She said she dispatched a police unit to the scene, along with the fire service. The unit called for assistance. Instead of more constables, Dickheadson arrived. Once the fire died out, Dickinson phoned SOCO. Then, since he’d already put himself in charge, they made him SIO.’

Robert leaned towards Nina and added, ‘That’s the senior investigating officer. And SOCO are crime scene techs.’

Cheryl nodded. ‘Aye, and Dickinson assembled his team. I couldn’t check how the people he chose knew him, not without setting off alarm bells, but…’ Cheryl waved at Joshua.

Joshua nodded, leaning in and dropping his voice so no one could hear them. ‘I sent out feelers amongst the staff who work under these people. I got the impression that the general consensus is that the people in Dickheadson’s team are not on the straight and narrow. The pathologists aren’t that bothered with minute details, and the head technician isn’t very good at writing up reports or logging evidence accurately. He makes the newest member of his team do the paperwork and signs off on reports without reading them.’

Cheryl gritted her teeth. ‘I know the like. Just like fucking Payne.’

At Joshua’s raised eyebrow, Cheryl shook her head and gestured for him to continue.

‘The officers who were sent door to door to ask questions said they submitted their reports, but no one went back to ask any follow-up questions.’

Nina gulped down half her pint, the hope she’d clutched on to for the last few days waning. Aye, Cheryl and Joshua had uncovered a lot of evidence, enough to make her mind spin. Still… ‘All this is great, but at the end of the day, it’s our word against Dickheadson’s. And we need more to get to the mastermind.’

‘Precisely.’ Cheryl pointed to the next page of her notes. ‘As luck would have it – luck for us, not the house owners – I had a house fire case on my desk. I asked my colleague PC Priti Singh – she’s as green as fucking Glasgow Green in spring – to create a list of recent cases where fire was involved.’

Robert blew out a breath. ‘That’s smart. Case files involving fire would have got you the file of the Walls Street arson-murder. And under PC Singh’s login.’

‘It’s not going to hold them off for long.’ Cheryl looked at Joshua. ‘We took the files to a retired technician. He worked with my boss when I first started. As a third party, he had the most interesting observations about the report.’

Joshua pulled up another page in the file. Angling it so they could all see, he began, ‘This is a photocopy of that file. And all the areas highlighted in yellow are iffy at best.’

Nina tilted her head, eyeing the report. She could see the problem very clearly. ‘All of it’s false?’

‘Insufficient to draw the conclusions this report asserts,’ Cheryl said. ‘First of all, the report suggests the fire was due to a gas leak, but the records from the gas company refute this claim. They, apparently, don’t supply gas to that building at all –the whole place went electric a couple of years ago. Besides, if it was a gas leak, it would have taken out not just the top and bottom floor but all the houses around as well because there would’ve been an explosion.’

Joshua turned the page. ‘And it was just a fire, which corroborates what the 999 caller and first responders reported.’

Nina reached out and intertwined her fingers with Robert’s. ‘So someone deliberately set the fire after I left?’

‘Aye.’ Cheryl huffed out a breath. ‘And there’s more.’

Once again, Joshua flipped the page. ‘The report then says they found signs of a single body, the remains so charred they couldn’t identify the gender. But the damage caused and the temperature of the fire wouldn’t have been intense enough to erase such evidence. Plus, every crime scene has a forensic photographer on site.’

Robert reached for the file. ‘Where are the photographs of the scene?’

‘Didn’t print them out.’ Cheryl stilled Robert’s hands. ‘Please, let me walk you through this. The images aren’t pretty, and certainly not for civilian eyes.’

Robert gave up and pushed the file back to Joshua.

Straightening out the papers, Joshua started again. ‘We saw the images though, and so did Cheryl’s techie contact. And we all agree: the remains are clearly male.’

‘And’ – Cheryl reached the end of the report – ‘they found blood on the floor. Some of it belonged to the dead male and the rest of it to a female. Within the debris, the report says, they found a partial ID they traced to Anne. Then, using the hair on Anne’s hairbrush, they matched the DNA profile to the blood.’

‘I don’t get it.’ Nina bit her lip. ‘If they could identify one body, what about Anne?’

Robert’s sharp inhale of breath sounded like a sword being unsheathed from its scabbard.

Cheryl reached across the table and gripped Robert’s hand again. Looking straight at him, she said, ‘They believed there was too much blood on scene for Anne to have survived and that the killer moved her from the scene. Finally, the report mentions the knife on which they found Nina’s fingerprints. As an immigrant, the Home Office has your biometrics on record. Thus they suspected Nina of both murders.’

Fucking hell! This was nothing they didn’t already know. Nina dropped her head, trying to hold back a scream of frustration.

‘However’ – Cheryl raised her voice, forcing Nina to look up – ‘the blood they lifted and confirmed as Anne’s had a distinct anomaly to it consistent with being frozen.’

Silence descended over all four of them as that information seeped in. Nina’s head hammered like the beats of electronic dance music. All along, though they’d arrested her on suspicion of murdering two people, they’d only found a single body. And the blood they’d confirmed as Anne’s had been frozen. What did that mean?

Robert straightened in his chair, his skin having lost its colour. ‘Don’t, please.’

When Nina reached for him, he pushed off the chair and stumbled. Joshua caught Robert and helped him back into the chair.

‘Breathe, man!’

Cheryl rushed to Robert’s side and shoved his head between his knees. ‘He’s having a panic attack. Call the paramedics.’

‘N-No!’ Robert spluttered. ‘I… They can’t find us.’

Crouching in front of him so she could see his face, Nina ordered him to breathe. He listened, but she could see the panic in his eyes. She hated it, hated the feeling bubbling inside her at his pain.

‘No, no hospitals. No.’ Robert reached out and gripped Nina’s shoulders.

Nina nodded, caressing his cheeks. She’d have done anything to take his pain away in that moment. ‘Talk to me, Robert.’

His eyes met hers, cracking her heart further. ‘My life has been a lie, Nina, a big fucking lie. I know how they did it.’