Beneath the Bleeding (14 page)

‘Can we, though? Can we be sure this is the person he was referring to?’ Sam butted in.

‘Sure as we can be. We’ve been through all the footage and we’ve not been able to put anybody else alongside Robbie. Someone talking to him from behind wouldn’t have been able to get at his drink. See, it’s too close to Robbie for anyone to tamper with it except the person facing him at the bar.’

‘OK.’ Sam subsided. ‘Point taken.’

‘Thanks, Chris. Anybody else got anything?’

‘I’ve got the results from the street CCTV,’ Paula said. ‘I got the graveyard-shift CID to work it through the night. Robbie definitely didn’t leave by the front door, which is a massive pain in the arse because that area’s saturated with cameras. He must have left by the side door, the so-called VIP exit. There’s no coverage there-the club wants to keep on the good side of its so-called celebrity patrons. This way, there’s no temptation for the club’s security staff to flog stuff to the gossip mags. If there are no pix of C-list TV reality-show arseholes shagging some drunken fan up against the wall, they’re not going to be exposed in print. So goes the theory.

‘The back lane behind the club opens out into Goss Street, the effective border of Temple Fields…’ Paula paused for a moment, lips pursed, eyes narrowed. And of course, Temple Fields has pretty sketchy coverage. Too many of the businesses there are reliant on the streetlife for them to want CCTV, so they always oppose the council when they want to put more cameras up. So we don’t have any footage of
Robbie entering Goss Street. What we do have, however, is a very brief clip from one of the cameras on Campion Way. I’ve just put it up on the network, you’ll all be able to see it on your screens. But here it is for now.’ She pulled a laptop towards her and tapped the mouse pad. The interactive whiteboard to the side of Carol immediately sprang to life, an obscure picture appearing, an abstract chiaroscuro of dark and light created by the streetlights on Campion Way. ‘This is pretty raw,’ Paula said. ‘We should be able to get it cleaned up a bit. But I don’t know how helpful it’s going to be.’

The camera was looking down the street, angled to pick up car number plates as kerb crawlers idled down Campion Way. At first, nothing moved. Then two figures emerged from a cross street, paused at the kerb, waiting for a night bus to pass, then walked briskly across the road and disappeared down the other arm of the side street. Knowing Robbie Bishop was the target made it possible to distinguish the walker closest to the camera as the footballer. But the person beyond him was nothing but a darker smudge, except for one brief moment at the kerbside when a blur of white appeared at Robbie’s shoulder.

‘And the killer is Caspar the friendly fucking ghost,’ Kevin said. At least we know he’s white. Almost makes you think he knew the camera was there.’

‘I think he did know,’ Paula said. ‘I think it’s very instructive that this is the only CCTV camera shot we have of Robbie and his probable killer. Even with the scant coverage there is in Temple Fields, it’s impossible to get from one side to the other without being picked up at least once on camera.’ She tapped again
on the mouse pad. This time, a map of Temple Fields appeared, with Amatis and the CCTV cameras highlighted. Paula tapped again. This time, a scarlet line zigzagged through the streets, avoiding all but the Campion Way camera. ‘By taking this route, they were only picked up from the side. And for less than a minute. Any other route and they’d have been filmed head-on. Look at the way they must have come. You don’t make all those twists and turns by chance. And I don’t think it was Robbie who was avoiding the cameras.’

They all stared at the map for a long moment. ‘Well spotted, Paula,’ Carol said. ‘I think we can safely say that we are looking for somebody local. Somebody who attended Harriestown High School and who has intimate knowledge of Temple Fields. With all respect, Kevin, this is looking more like one of your fellow former pupils than the Russian mafia. Unless of course they’re using local talent. So let’s keep our minds open. Paula, do we know how they left Temple Fields?’

‘It’s a blank, chief. There are plenty of smart flats in that part of town these days. Or they might have got into a car. We’ve no way of knowing. All we can say for sure is that they don’t show up on foot on any of the main drags on that side of Temple Fields.’

‘OK. Let’s see if we can get any more commercial CCTV footage of the area. Are we any further forward on where he might have got the ricin?’

Kevin consulted his notebook. ‘I spoke to a lecturer in the pharmacology department at the university. He says it’s easy to make. All you need are some castor beans, lye and acetone and a few basic bits of kitchen
equipment-a glass jar, coffee filter, tweezers, that level of stuff.’

‘Where do you get castor beans?’ Chris asked.

‘They’re common anywhere south of the Alps. You can buy them online without any trouble. Basically, if any of us wanted to make enough ricin to wipe out the people in this building, we could do it by a week on Wednesday. I don’t think there’s any mileage in trying to trace the components,’ Kevin said wearily.

It was hard not to let despondency seep into the briefing. Carol told herself they had made some progress, even if it did feel insignificant. Every investigation had stages where it felt bogged down. Soon the forensic and pathology results would begin to trickle in. Please God, that might give them a crack they could lever open into a break.

Red-hot worms covered in barbed hooks tore through his flesh. Stoicism abandoned, Tony screamed. The pain subsided into a pulsing stab, an electric eel inside his thigh. The breath escaped from him in tight little groans. ‘Everybody says having the drains out is the worst,’ the middle-aged nurse said cosily.

‘Ungh,’ Tony grunted. ‘Not wrong.’ Sweat beaded his face and neck. His whole body stiffened as he felt the twinge of a movement in the second drain. ‘Just a minute. Gimme a minute,’ he gasped.

‘Better out than in,’ the nurse said and carried on regardless.

Knowing what was coming didn’t make the second one any easier to endure. He clenched his hands and eyes shut and took a deep breath. As the scream died
away, a familiar voice grated in his ears. ‘He’s always been a big girl’s blouse,’ his mother said conversationally to the nurse.

‘I’ve seen strong men cry, having their drains out,’ the nurse said. ‘He’s done better than many.’

Vanessa Hill patted the nurse on the shoulder. ‘I love the way you girls stick up for them. I hope he’s not giving you any trouble.’

The nurse smiled. ‘Oh no, he’s being very well behaved. He’s a credit to you, really, Mrs Hill.’ And she was gone.

His mother’s bonhomie left with her. ‘I had a meeting with the Bradfield Cross Trust. I thought I’d better show my face. What are they saying?’

‘They’re going to try me in a leg brace, see if I can get out of bed today or tomorrow. I’m pushing to be out of here by next week.’ He recognized the dismay on her face and considered winding her up. But the small boy in him kicked in, warning him that the consequences would probably not be worth the moment of pleasure. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to let them discharge me into your care. Even if I tell them that’s where I’m going, all you’ll have to do is turn up when they’re sending me home. Then you can deliver me to my own house.’

Vanessa smirked. The girlfriend going to take care of you, is she?’

‘For the last time, she is not my girlfriend.’

‘No, I suppose that would be too much to hope for. Pretty girl like that. Smart too, I don’t doubt. She could do better for herself, I expect.’ Her lips compressed into a thin line of disapproval. ‘You’ve never had my talent for attracting interesting people.
Apart from your father, of course. But then, we’re all entitled to one mistake.’

‘I couldn’t possibly comment, could I? Since you’ve never told me anything about him.’ Tony heard the bitterness in his voice and wished it gone.

‘He thought he was better off without us. In my book, that makes us better off without him.’ She turned away, looking out of the window at a flat grey sky. ‘Listen, I need you to sign something.’ She faced him, leaning her shoulder bag on the bed and taking out a folder of papers. ‘Bloody government, they try to screw us for every penny. Your gran’s house, it’s in both our names. She did it that way to save me paying inheritance tax. It’s been rented out all these years. But with the property market the way–’

‘Wait a minute. What do you mean, Gran’s house is in both our names? This is the first I’ve heard of it.’ Tony pushed himself up on one elbow, wincing but determined.

‘Of course it’s the first you’ve heard of it. If I’d left it up to you, you’d have had it running as a probation hostel or a halfway house for some of your precious nutters,’ Vanessa said without a trace of indulgent affection. ‘Look, I just need you to sign the instructions to the solicitor and the transfer deed.’ She produced a couple of sheets of paper and placed them on the bed-table, grabbing the bed control and fiddling with the buttons.

Tony found himself being shunted up and down as Vanessa tried to figure out how to get him to sit up. ‘Why am I only hearing about this now? What about all the rent money?’

Satisfied with the bed position, Vanessa flipped her
wrist dismissively. ‘Would have been wasted on you. What would you have done with it? Bought more bloody books? Anyway, you’ll get your share when you sign up for the sale.’ She raked in her bag and came up with a pen. ‘Here, sign these.’

‘I need to read them,’ Tony protested as she pushed the pen between his fingers.

‘What for? You’ll be none the wiser once you’re done. Just sign, Tony.’

It was, he thought, impossible to know whether she was trying to con him. Her manner would have been the same either way. Impatience, irritation, the unmistakable conviction that he, like the rest of the world, was trying to throw any available obstacle in her path. He could try standing up to her, demand the opportunity to read the papers in full and the time to think over what she wanted. But right now, he didn’t care. His leg hurt, his head hurt, and he knew she could take nothing from him that mattered. Yes, she might be keeping from him things that were his. But he’d got along fine without them so far and he probably would continue to do so. Getting her off his case and out of his room was much more important. ‘OK,’ he sighed. But before he could use the pen, the door swung open and Mrs Chakrabarti entered like a predatory schooner, her fleet round her in battle order.

In a single move, Vanessa spirited the papers away and into her bag. Under the cover of a pat on the hand, she removed the pen, all the while giving Mrs Chakrabarti the benefit of her finest corporate smile.

‘You must be the famous Mrs Hill,’ the surgeon said. Tony thought he imagined a dryness in her tone that he couldn’t quite believe.

‘I owe you a debt of gratitude for making such a good job of my son’s knee,’ Vanessa replied sweetly. The idea of being crippled for life is one he’d struggle to come to terms with.’

‘I think most people would.’ The surgeon turned to Tony. ‘I hear they managed to get your drains out without killing you.’

His smile felt ancient and tired. ‘Just about. I think it hurt more than being hit in the first place.’

Mrs Chakrabarti raised her eyebrows. ‘You men are such babies. It’s as well you don’t have to give birth or the human race would have died out a long time ago. So, what we are going to do now is to remove that big heavy splint and see what happens. It’s going to hurt like blazes, but if this pain is too much, then attempting to stand is certainly going to be beyond you.’

‘I’ll be off, then,’ Vanessa cut in. ‘I never could stand to see him suffer.’

Tony let the lie pass. It was worth it to see the back of her. ‘Do your worst, then, he said as the door closed behind Vanessa. ‘I’m tougher than I look.’

Stacey Chen was also tougher than she looked. She’d had to be. In spite of a phenomenal talent for programming and systems analysis, little had come easily to her. The silicon-based world should have been blind to her gender and her status as the child of immigrant parents, but it had turned out to be just as biased as everywhere else. That was one reason why she’d turned her back on a brilliant academic career and opted for the police. She’d made her first million while she was still an undergraduate with a clever bit of code she’d sold to a US software giant which
secured their operating system against potential software conflicts. But success had come with a larding of condescension and she knew she didn’t want to be part of that world.

In the police, however, you knew exactly where you were. Nobody apart from the bosses in offices far removed from the sharp end pretended your gender and ethnicity didn’t matter. It was prejudiced, but it was honest. She could put up with that because what Stacey loved more than anything was the opportunity the police service gave her to fiddle around inside other people’s computer lives. She could nose around in people’s emails, wriggle her way through their perversions and dig up the secrets they thought they’d buried. And it was all legal.

The other thing about police work was that there was no possible conflict between her salaried life and her freelance work. Her monthly pay packet barely covered the overheads of her city-centre penthouse, never mind the made-to-measure suits and shirts she wore to the office. The rest of the cash–and there was a lot of it–came from the code she wrote in her home office on her own machines. That was one kind of satisfaction. Poking her nose into other people’s privacy was the other. These days, she had what she wanted, but by God, she’d earned it.

The only downside was that from time to time, she had to deal with people face to face. For some reason, the police still believed that you got better results when you were breathing the same air as the people you were questioning. Very twentieth century, Stacey thought as her GPS system announced, ‘Destination road reached.’

The headquarters of Best Days of Our Lives didn’t look like any software company Stacey had ever visited. It was a suburban semi on the outskirts of Preston, a short but traffic-choked distance from the M6. It seemed odd that a company which had been the subject of a multi-million dollar buyout attempt only months before was based in a 1970s box that couldn’t with the best will in the world have been worth much more than a couple of hundred thousand. But it was the address registered at Companies House and the one they’d given her via email.