Page 59

FIFTY-EIGHT

Brigstocke wanted to run the interview, which was fine by Thorne.

There was clearly competition though as, just a few minutes after Jeremy Walker arrived, everyone in the incident room had become aware of the raised voices coming from Brigstocke’s office.

When the two of them eventually emerged, at the same time that Alex Brightwell was being escorted from his cell to the interview room at Colindale station, the rest of the team did their best to look busy; as if they weren’t overly concerned either way.

Like one or two of them hadn’t been laying bets.

Thorne thought that Brigstocke showed remarkable restraint in not punching the air, but his expression – not to mention Walker’s – made it clear enough which DCI had come out on top.

‘I’ll be conducting the Alex Brightwell interview together with DI Thorne,’ Brigstocke announced.

‘DCI Walker will observe via video link . . . ’ Walker stared at his perfectly polished brogues.

‘ . . . alongside DIs Tanner and Holland, together with DI Greaves from the CCU.’ A few looks were exchanged at the mention of the officer from the Counter Corruption Unit, but Brigstocke ignored them.

He nodded at Thorne and the two of them began heading for the door.

They were watched all the way. It was several hours into a late shift already, but every member of the team still working knew that, even though a murder charge was all but a foregone conclusion, this first interview with their suspect would nevertheless be hugely important.

A suspected cop-killer.

There were words of encouragement as they went, a few shouts, a fist or two banged on a desk.

Tanner winked at Thorne as they passed her.

Steve Pallister said, ‘Good luck, sir,’ though the look on his face suggested that he might have had a few quid on Walker.

Fifteen minutes later, Thorne and Brigstocke removed their jackets and took their seats opposite Alex Brightwell. Brigstocke ran through the formalities while Brightwell picked at a fingernail and the on-call solicitor – a corpulent hack named Fisher – scribbled notes.

Thorne watched and tried to keep his expression blank, thinking that, for all the good it would do him or his client, the solicitor might just as well have been making a shopping list.

‘Let’s start with the events leading to your arrest earlier this evening,’ Brigstocke said. ‘Could you tell us why, when as far we know you are not and never have been a food delivery driver, you were attempting to deliver food to an address in Edgware.’

Brightwell did not even bother with a dramatic pause.

‘No comment.’

‘This was a meal scheduled to be delivered to a woman named Emily Mead. Is that name familiar to you?’

‘No comment.’

The solicitor locked eyes with Thorne and shrugged. Just doing my job .

‘It should be,’ Brigstocke said. ‘Emily Mead’s the young woman you met in Hendon Park almost exactly two weeks ago, isn’t that right?

The woman who until then you’d known by her online alias ButterflyGrrrl.

You met up with her the night you stabbed a police officer named Adam Callaghan to death, isn’t that correct? ’

Brightwell looked up and across at them for the first time before he spoke and suddenly it sounded as though he was starting to enjoy himself. ‘No comment . . . whatsoever.’

Thorne leaned towards him. ‘Obviously we’re still waiting on the test results from the food you were attempting to deliver, but we know it’s going to contain arsenic, Alex.

’ He waited. ‘That from the same batch you used to kill Christopher Tully, was it?’ Thorne saw another no comment coming, so pressed on.

‘Let’s talk about the murder of Christopher Tully, shall we?

’ He removed photographs of Asim Hussain, Kazia Bobak and Catherine Holloway from the folder in front of him and spread them out in front of Brightwell.

‘These were the three other officers you killed at the same time.’

Brightwell glanced at the pictures, but his expression didn’t change.

‘They were just collateral damage really, weren’t they?’ Brigstocke said.

‘It was Tully you wanted.’ Thorne stared across the table. ‘It was Tully you blamed for what happened to your brother, wasn’t it?’

Brightwell looked back at Thorne, eyes narrowing.

‘We do know why you’ve been carrying out these killings, Alex.’

‘No comm—’

‘We understand,’ Brigstocke said. He glanced down at his mobile phone when it buzzed, saw the message from Walker in the viewing room above.

Ask how he knew about the Cresswell op .

Brigstocke turned the phone so that Thorne could see the text, just as another one arrived. Brightwell peered, trying to read them.

We need to ID the leak .

‘It was very ingenious,’ Brigstocke said. ‘The business with the doughnuts. I bet you were pleased with that, weren’t you?’

‘No comment.’

‘How did you know where to leave them, though?’

‘Yeah . . . that’s still bothering us,’ Thorne said. ‘We were hoping you might be able to clear that up.’

‘I mean, it wasn’t just luck, was it?’ Brigstocke said.

‘No comment.’

‘How did you know, Alex?’ Thorne reached to scratch his shoulder, glancing towards the camera in the corner of the room. ‘How did you know where Tully was going to be?’

‘Who told you, Alex?’

Brightwell leaned forward suddenly. ‘Seriously? You think I’m going to help you?’

Fisher looked up from his scribblings and now it was Thorne’s turn to shrug. Bad luck, mate. Sometimes they just want to chat .

Brightwell shook his head, laughing quietly. ‘You say you know why these murders happened. Why those coppers had to die. So, bearing that in mind, what on earth makes you think I’d say anything that might help you?’

Brigstocke nodded, like it was a perfectly fair question.

‘Because you’d be helping Peter,’ Thorne said.

The laughter stopped, because now, Brightwell was interested. ‘How?’

‘Well, let’s just say that during the course of our investigation, we’ve come across information that leads us to believe your brother was not the man who raped Siobhan Brady.’

‘You believe he wasn’t?’

The phone buzzed again. Another message from above.

Go steady .

‘I know he wasn’t,’ Thorne said. ‘And you choosing to help us, might provide the impetus for us to do something about it.’

‘Who was it?’ Brightwell asked.

Thorne said nothing, as though this was a card he wasn’t ready to play just yet, though the truth was that he wasn’t actually holding it.

He wasn’t remotely bothered about upsetting DCI Jeremy Walker, but however much he wanted to, he couldn’t say Tully’s name.

They still did not have the proof. There was sufficient evidence, however, to have Peter Brightwell’s conviction marked as unsafe, and Thorne knew that would be good enough.

‘We can get your brother out of prison,’ Brigstocke said. ‘How quickly that happens depends on how much you decide to help us.’

Thorne and Brigstocke were happy to let Brightwell think about that offer for a while. Brigstocke turned pages. Thorne smiled at Fisher then let the smile drift up to the camera; to Walker.

‘Who fed you the information about the Cresswell operation?’ Thorne asked, eventually.

‘We’re presuming they also passed on intelligence about Emily Mead turning herself in, the sting in Whittington Park and the location of the safe house.

You were even told what Emily Mead had ordered for dinner tonight—’

‘It was all done online,’ Brightwell said.

‘Not how , Alex. Who .’

‘It was anonymous.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘That’s how it works online.’

‘So, just out of the blue someone decided to send you the information you needed?’

‘Yeah, pretty much.’

Brigstocke’s phone buzzed again. Push him. He knows who it is .

‘We’re talking about a police officer, yes?’ Brigstocke said. ‘You must have worked out that much.’

‘Yeah, it had to be,’ Brightwell said. ‘How else would they know?’

‘What does “online” mean, exactly?’

‘Well, they weren’t Facebook messages.’

‘A private group, then. Like the one you used to contact Emily Mead?’

Brightwell nodded, then raised his hands.

‘Look, that’s as much as I can tell you.

Trust me, if I knew any more . . . if anything I could tell you would get Peter out any quicker, I would.

I didn’t know who was sending me this stuff and I’ve got even less idea why.

’ He sat back and smiled. ‘Whoever he is, though, I’d like to buy him a drink. ’

‘That’s unlikely to happen.’

‘Maybe you can share a tea in the prison canteen,’ Thorne said.

There were a few seconds of silence until the phone jumped on the table.

We’ve got enough . . .

While Brightwell was being taken back to his cell, Thorne and Brigstocke were joined in the corridor by Walker, Tanner and Holland. There was no sign of James Greaves, who presumably had other places to go and other implications to investigate.

‘Nice job,’ Tanner said.

Thorne grunted a ‘Cheers’, but he did not seem convinced.

‘You going to have another crack at him in the morning?’ Holland asked.

‘I don’t see the need,’ Walker said.

Thorne turned to him. ‘The need ?’

‘I think DCI Walker might well be right,’ Brigstocke said.

‘No, we didn’t get an out-and-out confession, but we’ve got enough forensics, we’ve got an eyewitness to at least one of the murders in Emily Mead and a solid motive our suspect isn’t arguing with.

As soon as the tests on that food come back, we can charge him. ’

‘It’s the perfect result.’ Walker was smiling as he reached to lay a hand on Thorne’s arm. ‘And one we wouldn’t have got at all if DI Thorne hadn’t put the whole food delivery thing together. It’s all down to him.’

Thorne, Tanner and Holland were fifty yards or so ahead of Walker and Brigstocke as they walked the short distance from the station back to Becke House.

Tanner was trying to move quickly and urged Thorne to do the same, keen to get out of the cold.

Thorne’s silence and the slump of his shoulders made it clear that – unlike the senior officers behind them – he wasn’t thinking about the congratulations that would undoubtedly be offered when they got back to the office, or the drink that would be all but compulsory before they finally got the chance to go home.

She didn’t need to ask him the question.

‘It’s not the perfect result, is it?’ he said. ‘Fuck’s he talking about?’

‘It’s a bloody good result, Tom,’ Tanner said. ‘Six murders, one attempted, one conspiracy to murder if Knowles doesn’t recover . . . that’s not nothing, is it?’

‘That’s a seriously dangerous individual we’ll be putting away,’ Holland said.

‘Right, and one we won’t be.’

‘No, but—’

‘We’ve got a senior officer who’s been overseeing multiple rapes then covering them up.

We’ve been telling Russell not to pass this on because someone’s leaking information and all the time we’ve been talking about the same person .

It’s got to be, surely. Right from the off, we’ve been asking ourselves why anyone would give information to Brightwell and it’s patently obvious.

He’s covering his tracks, isn’t he? He’s cleaning house. ’

Tanner looked at Holland then glanced behind her, but Brigstocke and Walker were well out of earshot. ‘So, he gives Brightwell what he needs to get rid of Tully, because Tully can identify him?’

‘Yes, and it doesn’t much matter if three other coppers are killed in the process. He tells Brightwell about Emily Mead and the safe house, because he’d rather she was out of the way, too.’

‘What about Callaghan?’

‘I think Brightwell did that one off his own bat, once he’d hooked up with Emily Mead, but it certainly did the man we’re after a favour.’

‘You think Brightwell killed Daniel Sadler as well?’ Holland asked.

‘Maybe, but either way someone decided he had to be got rid of.’ Thorne turned to him, stepping carefully across a perfectly curled dog-turd that was already glistening with frost. ‘Look, obviously I’m happy we’ve got Brightwell, but we need to know who was giving him the intel he needed.’

‘The man whose voice Emily Mead heard,’ Tanner said.

‘And Priya Kulkarni,’ Holland said. ‘And Siobhan Brady.’

‘That’s who we need to take down.’ Thorne’s fists were clenched, deep in his pockets. ‘That’s our perfect result.’

They walked on in silence until they reached the main entrance to the Peel Centre. They showed their IDs at the gate and walked across the car park towards Becke House.

‘I do think Brightwell was telling the truth, though,’ Tanner said. ‘He doesn’t know who was sending him those messages. He’d have no reason not to tell us, if he did, because he wants his brother out of prison.’

They pushed through the doors into the lobby and stopped briefly to enjoy the warmth; to undo coats and loosen scarves.

‘One quick drink to celebrate?’ Holland asked.

‘Nothing to celebrate yet,’ Thorne said.