Authors: Dreda Say Mitchell
Newman didn’t answer; instead he sat back at his desk.
‘You know that I’m going to retire in a month’s time,’ he said quietly. ‘Well, so is Jack. All he wants in his last month on the job is to be elbow deep in a case that gets his adrenaline racing.’
‘I’m not hosting a fairground roller coaster called The Metropolitan Police Service Adventure Ride—’
‘No, but you are under my command and will do what you’re told.’ Rio knew when it was wise to keep her mouth well and truly closed. ‘Remember, Wray, that I’m on the cusp of putting your name forwards to take my place.’
Although Rio felt the pride that came with his words, she didn’t like that the job came with strings attached.
‘I thought you were doing that because you consider me the best person for the job.’
‘I do. That’s why I know you’re going to make Strong’s last days in the Force ones for him to put in his photo album.’
‘If he slips up once . . .’ Rio held up a finger. ‘You’re going to have to find someone else to provide fun and games for Jack.’
Rio got up to leave.
‘And Wray . . .?’
Rio turned back around.
‘You heard the Assistant Commissioner, so I don’t have to tell you how high profile this case is. You need to get this job done. Quickly. If finding this gang proves hard you may want to think about enlisting some outside help.’
‘Outside help? Like a CI?’ Using confidential informants was common practice.
He shook his head. ‘I’m thinking more of a specialist. A security consultant with his ear to the ground.’
Astonishment gripped Rio’s face because she knew whose name he was going to slot into that role.
‘Someone like Calum Burns.’
seven
11:35 a.m.
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!
Profanity was the only decent way Rio knew how to respond to hearing Calum Burns’ name. Former cop. No: disgraced former cop, now doing his own thing in the world of security consultancy. Rio leaned the flat of her hand against the wall of the stairwell leading up to her office to stop the emotions burning her up. That’s what Calum did to her: made her steaming, badass mad, and vulnerable; he was one of the only people who could make her think the ground wasn’t beneath her feet.
Newman was wrong – no way could she ask Calum for a little bit of assistance on the side. Not because he wouldn’t prove up to the task – quite the opposite, Calum was a man with his nose stuck in all types of ‘wrong places’ that could prove beneficial to this case. But what lay between them, thick and unresolved, was somewhere she wasn’t going back to.
Rio hitched herself off the wall, got back on with her job. Less than a minute later she entered the operation room.
‘Nicola Bell. Sixteen years old. A very special witness.’ Rio’s voice was confident and loud enough to get the full attention of her team.
Most of the team were made up of the six detectives she usually worked with, but there were two others who were on loan from the original police squad working on the investigation in Surrey. And now there was Jack Strong. Rio saw him out of the corner of her eye, as she moved further into the room. He sat, arms folded, perched on a desk on the margins of the rest of the team.
Her
desk, committing one of the cardinal sins in Rio’s squad – never, EVER invade her space, including thinking her desk was some kind of easy chair. But Rio let it alone . . . for now.
She stopped in front of the huge, freestanding whiteboard that had all the information relating to the investigation, using arrows to link photographs and writing about the previous raids in Surrey, and a large map with red lines and circles indicating key locations. Rio wanted to shake the team up so she pulled two photographs off the board and added three from a folder that was stationed near the board. She stuck them on the board.
‘Murder.’ Rio stabbed her finger against the gruesome image of Linda Bell, throat slashed, in her own kitchen.
‘Murder.’ She did the same to the photo of Maurice Bell.
‘Murder.’ Ania, the cleaner.
‘Murder.’ A gruesome shot of a woman with her face blown away.
The silence in the room was chilling – exactly what Rio wanted.
‘That’s what we’re dealing with.’ Her voice cut thickly through the quiet. ‘A gang of men who, in the last six weeks, have graduated from robbery, terrorising people and holding them against their will to the ultimate crime – the taking of human life.’ Rio zeroed her gaze onto one member of her team. ‘Detective Richmond, outline for us what we know about this gang’s MO so far.’
She could have used his first name but she wanted to keep everything very formal to ensure that the gravity and urgency of their investigation remained in place.
Detective Peter Richmond was one of the Surrey officers, young, fresh-faced and – most importantly for Rio – keen. As he began to talk, Rio began to write the gang’s pattern of brutal home invasion on the second whiteboard:
Targets: high-end properties that are secluded but have access to main roads a few miles away.
All raids within a 40-mile radius of London, so the press have started calling them Greenbelt Gang.
Arrival time: around 5 or 6 in the morning when all the occupants of the houses are still in bed.
Transportation: unknown. Obvious way is by vehicle but none of our witnesses have heard one. Assumption is they park up and walk the last few miles or maybe – a very weak maybe – use bikes although there’s no evidence of that. They’d need adequate transport to carry stolen items away.
One member of the gang takes down any CCTV. Sprays the lens with paint from a can. Uses a paint gun for those mounted on poles. He’s very accurate.
He’s the only member of the gang we have photos of.
The team all looked over at the first whiteboard, which displayed two camera stills of someone dressed in black wearing a clown mask. The mask dominated the shot because the camera lens was looking down. And it was scary. Yellow curly hair, white, rubber skin, eyes painted demon black and red mouth set in an obscene wide grin, belching beige stained teeth and bumpy, enlarged bottom gum.
Detective Richmond started talking again and Rio continued to write:
Point of entry: Back of the house. Use silencers to shoot out windows to get in.
Collect spent bullets they’ve used.
Short the electrical supply. Disables any security. Keeps the house in darkness so as to terrify the residents.
High-powered flashlights to find their way around with the added bonus that the occupants can’t see them properly.
Descriptions: black boiler suits and clown masks. Indistinguishable from one another.
Round up everyone they find in the house together.
Douse the most vulnerable person in petrol and threaten to set them on fire unless they’re led to the valuables. Raid 3 they waved a lighter around.
First four raids, only one member of the gang did the talking, which we know from the voice picked up via the paint-sprayed security cams. Voice distorted by nitrous oxide so his voice was disguised and, of course, that effect frightened the residents even more.
What’s taken? High-ticket items they’ve been shown. And then escape. Can’t put an exact figure on the sums stolen. Estimate up to the value of a half million pounds.
No trace of anything from their haul has turned up on the radar yet.
Rio stopped writing as she interrupted the young member of her team. ‘With raid five we know that things changed.’ Richmond knew that was his cue to give Rio back the floor.
‘On raid five, the victims were a newly married couple. The wife was shot point blank in the face while the husband survived.’
Rio moved to the other whiteboard and stabbed her finger below the photograph of the corpse without a face. ‘Her name was Rubina Ali. She’d been married for two weeks, worked as a financial analyst in the City and was planning to have her first child next year. That life has now been smashed because our gang of thieves decided to turn into a band of bloodthirsty men. She was home alone. What was picked up by the audio of the sprayed security cameras was that the shooter seemed jumpy and aggressive. There was no reason for the murder. The gang had the valuables. And there was the sound of a scuffle after the gunshot. Maybe the rest of the gang were trying to restrain the shooter.’
Rio stopped and let her gaze span her team. She got ready to ask a question, but a voice she didn’t want to hear interrupted her.
Jack Strong: ‘The shooter was probably someone who joined the gang for the first time.’
Rio ignored him. That was the best way to deal with Mr Useless who had been dumped on her.
So she carried on. ‘This morning it appears that we have raid six. Three people are murdered. But we know something that the gang don’t – there was a witness hiding, who they know nothing about. Her name is Nicola Bell: the niece of one of the victims, Maurice Bell, who owned the house with his wife Linda, another victim. He was shot; her throat was cut. We believe that the raid took place between six and seven this morning—’
‘Around six forty-three a.m.,’ Strong supplied.
A hush descended as every eye, including Rio’s, turned to him. No one else spoke because her squad knew how she liked to run briefings – she’d go through the information inviting others to contribute as and when. No one called out without an invite to take the floor.
But Strong carried on. ‘Nicola Bell’s iPad shows that she was on a social networking site called Yakkety-Yak. She was in conversation with someone and the last recorded time for that conversation was six forty-three so we can assume that this was roughly the time of the raid.’
The information he supplied was spot on, but Rio ignored him.
‘What information have we got so far on Maurice and Linda Bell?’
‘Mr Bell was fifty-nine,’ another officer supplied, ‘and made his money – a lot of it from all accounts – in property: residential as well as commercial. He also diversified into becoming a shareholder of the successful IT group XTC. I did some ringing around and he’s worth millions. Linda Bell, on the other hand, was always a stay-at-home mum—’
‘Have you got any intel on their two children?’
‘All I’ve got,’ the detective continued, ‘are two names that we already know about from the neighbours. Leah and Cornelius. But I’m hoping to have some information patched through soon.’
‘There was a third victim,’ Rio continued. ‘Ania—’
‘It’s a Polish name,’ Strong joined in again, this time causing one of the veins in Rio’s throat to throb. ‘I did some calling around and discovered that her surname was Brown. She married a British citizen about two years ago. She’d been the cleaner for about nine months—’
‘Detective Strong.’ Rio let both words lie in the air. She knew she should just leave it alone, but she couldn’t any longer. Newman might force her to babysit, but that didn’t mean she had to let the baby puke and poop all over her squad room.
‘I don’t know how things were done where you came from, but here we have a system where contributions are made in an orderly fashion. That way each of us keeps track of what’s going on,’ she added, her tone becoming pointed. ‘We follow
procedure
here.’
The bastard just lifted an eyebrow at her. Rio couldn’t see his eyes clearly from where she was standing, but would bet her next pay cheque that they were a shade of mocking-blue. Rio jerked her gaze away from him and continued outlining the investigation so far.
‘There were two different variations in the Bells’ home compared to the other five raids. First, the blanking and painting of the CCTV wasn’t as efficient as usual. Several of the cameras were left untouched – although we’ve got no film of the gang from those that weren’t. Second, Nicola Bell only saw two members of the gang. We know from the other raids that there were about five or six members of the gang, so why weren’t there other members of the gang upstairs searching for valuables?’
A scoffing sound came from somewhere but Rio couldn’t locate where from. Then she found Strong. She nearly exploded because he was rolling his eyes, with a smirk on his face.
‘Is there something you want to share with the rest of us Detective Strong?’
His leg stopped swinging. ‘Do I have permission to talk?’ No one in the room could miss the sarcasm loaded in his tone. ‘I’ve got a theory—’
‘Yeah, well,’ Rio butted in, ‘we’re not dealing with blue-sky theories, we’re dealing with facts. I know that this might be hard for you to grasp but we take crime seriously in this team, Detective Strong. If that’s a hard concept for you to understand, maybe you should walk out of the room, straight up to the DS’s office and get him to find you somewhere where they don’t mind teenagers in their care bleeding to death in a cold, lonely cell.’
The air was thick. Tense. Damn! She hadn’t meant to say that, but this guy was ticking her off. Rio ignored the tiny part of her that was doing a victory dance at rubbishing and slapping him down in front of the others. It was an abomination – that’s the word her mum would have used – that trash like Strong was breathing the same air as the others.