The Patient Killer (A DCI Morton Crime Novel Book 4) (16 page)

Morton stroked his chin thoughtfully. ‘Who, then?’

‘The same person who substituted your diamonds for cubic zirconia,’ Rafferty said.

‘You think the evidence clerk did it?’ Ayala said.

‘Can you rule it out?’ Rafferty challenged.

Morton looked from Rafferty to Ayala, and he could see they thought they were on to something. He had to put his foot down. ‘Enough. As ingenious as your conspiracy theory is, we don’t have a shred of evidence. If we’re going to go accusing people, then you need proof. Let me hear some other ideas. Ayala?’

‘Cannibalism.’

‘Not this again.’

‘It fits!’ Ayala said. ‘Yacobi and Stapleton had their blood drained. Primrose Kennard had a lung removed. Black pudding and offal.’

Even Rafferty looked vaguely disgusted at this suggestion. She pulled a face and tutted loudly. ‘No way. Cannibalism is off the menu. A vigilante makes far more sense. Yacobi and Stapleton might be related, but why would anyone target poor old Primrose Kennard?’

‘Board time again, Ayala, if you please,’ Morton said.

Under Victim One, Ayala wrote:
Primrose Kennard. Retired, widow, had no life other than church socials and trips to bingo. She died after being injected with sodium thiopental, her lung was neatly removed and her body was dumped on her husband’s grave.

‘This kill is different, but it’s also the same. We thought gang-related when we saw her on the autopsy table. What was it the coroner said, Rafferty, about silence?’

‘He thought the removal of the lung meant “Don’t breathe a word,” that someone was being blackmailed into silence.’

‘Exactly. All three kills involve coercion, all three have connotations of gang involvement, and all three bodies were mutilated. But Kennard doesn’t fit the rest of the pattern.’

‘Why not?’ Ayala said. ‘The old ladies at the bingo hall said she nicked stuff from the local shop and that she might have been a bit of an alcoholic. That’s potentially criminal. It fits with Rafferty’s vigilante theory.’

‘Kennard was posed on her husband’s grave. That to me says that there’s a personal connection between her and her killer. Who else would know where her husband was buried?’ Morton said. ‘Which brings us back to her kids.’

‘I’m not convinced,’ Rafferty said. ‘Primrose Kennard was dying. If her sons wanted her dead, then why wouldn’t they just let her die? They saved her life by donating a lung lobe each. Without that, she’d have been gone in months.’

‘That would have given Primrose a chance to cut them out of her will. Highgate is pricey, and Primrose owned that big old Victorian house free and clear,’ Morton said. ‘Even independently wealthy men might be tempted by such a prize.’

‘Then, where do we go next?’ Ayala said.

‘You two keep digging. Find out everything you can about the three victims. If there’s even the slightest chance there’s a connection among the three, I want to know about it. And send someone over to Mayberry with a laptop. I promised I’d see to that.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘To talk to the only men in Primrose Kennard’s life.’

M
onday April 13th 15:00

Despite the superintendent’s warnings of dire consequences, Morton had to return to the offices of Nuvem Media Associates. He wasn’t entirely convinced the twins were behind their mother’s murder. They had no apparent motive, though their alibi was shaky at best.

Despite that lack of evidence, Morton felt certain the twins were hiding something. It didn’t help that they were thoroughly dislikeable human beings who had shown little emotion when informed of their mother’s murder, and had set the superintendent on him after Morton had asked a perfectly valid question as to their whereabouts on the night of Primrose Kennard’s murder.

The twins saw him coming a mile away. As Morton crossed the road, he watched them break away from the group they were talking to, abandoning their would-be clients to intercept Morton at the entrance.

‘Didn’t we tell you to talk to our lawyer?’ Freddy demanded. ‘One more step and I’ll sue for trespass. You’re not welcome here.’

Morton stopped in his tracks. He was halfway through the door and was obstructing the twins’ access to the pavement.

‘Gentlemen,’ he said in an effort to placate them, ‘I’m not here to cause you any trouble. I need to ask a few questions. If you want to call your lawyer and do this at New Scotland Yard, then we can, but I’m sure you don’t want that disruption to your day.’

The twins’ anger dissipated. They turned away and spoke in hushed voices for a few moments.

‘Look, we’ve got clients in,’ Freddy said. ‘We’ll be done in twenty minutes.’

‘Then I shall wait in the coffee shop across the street, where I can see you. If I see you disappear out the back entrance, I’ll be forced to assume you’re resisting arrest. Is that fair?’

‘Alright,’ said Chris, the other twin. ‘But you’re still not coming into the office. We’ll come to you when our meeting is over.’

True to their word, the twins joined Morton at the coffee shop twenty minutes later without any further trouble.

‘Let’s get on with it, then. What do you need to know?’ Freddy asked.

‘Where were you on the third of September six years ago?’

Christopher burst out laughing. ‘Are you serious? Who on earth would have any idea what they were doing on a random date years in the past?’

‘Someone who committed murder that day. I imagine that would be somewhat memorable,’ Morton said drily.

‘Well, we didn’t. Just like we didn’t murder our mother,’ Chris said. ‘Are we to assume, then, that you have another victim in mind? Was our mother killed by a serial killer?’

Morton ignored the question. ‘Where were you on Thursday?’

‘Copenhagen,’ Freddy said. ‘We had a meeting with investors, and we spent the rest of the weekend there before coming back.’

Damn.

‘Does the name Niall Stapleton mean anything to you?’

‘No. Should it?’

‘What about Amoy Yacobi?’ Morton prodded again.

‘Do you have something on our mother’s killer or not? We have a right to know.’

‘No, you don’t,’ Morton said bluntly. ‘You’re hiding something from me still.’

Freddy and Chris exchanged glances, as if they were sharing a secret telepathically. The former rubbed at his chest uncomfortably.

‘No, we’re not,’ Chris said. ‘And if that’s what you think, then this interview is over.’

M
onday April 13th 15:00

If Morton wanted proof, then Ayala would find him proof. The diamonds had been swapped out for cubic zirconia by someone, and those substitutes had to have come from somewhere.

It took some ingenuity, but Ayala managed to wangle access to the faux diamonds with a plea to Xander Thompson. The SOCA head honcho seemed bemused, but there was little risk of anyone stealing fake diamonds, so he approved Ayala’s request without a second thought.

The evidence bag was delivered to an evidence examination room several floors below the Murder Investigation Team’s offices.

Rafferty cast a watchful eye as Ayala carefully cut the evidence bag open and then amended the chain of custody record to indicate that it had been opened once more. It was odd. The paperwork was complete and correct. Nobody had mishandled the bag, and there was no sign of an evidence clerk attempting to sneak diamonds out of New Scotland Yard.

In any event, there were checks and balances in place to prevent the removal of evidence from the evidence lockers. Two people had to sign any item out, and if the evidence had a value over a thousand pounds, then one of those people had to be ranked DCI or higher, which all made the idea that the bag had been tampered with unlikely.

And yet the truth was right in front of him. Rafferty had borrowed a diamond tester from the forensics department, and the stones were stubbornly refusing to light up as diamonds despite both Ayala and Rafferty giving the test a whirl.

The test was straightforward enough. It was called an electrical conductivity test. A battery-powered probe heated up a small metal tip, which had to be pressed against the gemstone to be tested. That applied heat to the stones, and then the tester returned a rating based on how quickly they cooled back down.

Diamonds would conduct that heat away in seconds, allowing them to be easily identified. There was the chance of a false positive, but false negatives were much less likely, especially after several tests.

There was no doubt in Ayala’s mind: the stones in the evidence bag were not diamonds.

‘There’s something strange going on here. These don’t look like they’ve been touched since Morton and I collected them in Hatton Garden. The records are all perfect. So, why aren’t these diamonds?’ Ayala said to Rafferty.

‘Don’t ask me, Bertie boy. They look pretty enough to me.’ Rafferty held one up, and, even under the pallid glare of New Scotland Yard’s strip lighting, they looked as sparkly as anything Ayala had ever seen.

‘Hang on. What if it’s the tester?’

‘Ayala, you’re clutching at straws. You know Professional Standards would have been dead sure they were fakes before they yanked you and Morton in for questioning.’

‘It’s my name on the line, here! They think I nicked the diamonds!’

‘Then do another test if it’ll make you happy. There’s got to be a microscope in here somewhere.’ Rafferty looked around the room, searching among the plethora of equipment crowding out the counter running around the perimeter of the room.

‘Yeah. There.’ Ayala pointed. ‘Right next to that TV.’

Ayala turned the microscope on, and the television screen flickered to life. ‘Cool!’

‘Boys and their toys,’ Rafferty muttered. ‘Let’s have a butcher’s, then.’

It took a few minutes of Ayala twiddling the dials before the diamonds came into focus, but when they did, they were writ large upon the screen.

‘They look perfect,’ Rafferty said.

‘Too perfect. We’re at 100x magnificent. We should be seeing inclusions in the stones. Small dark bits,’ he added.

‘I know what inclusions are. Can’t you get flawless grade diamonds?’

‘Sure. But they’re graded flawless if you can’t see inclusions at 10x magnification. We’re looking a lot closer. And look at the edges.’ Ayala pointed at the screen.

‘What about them?’

‘They’re too round. That’s a giveaway.’

‘Hang on. In the corner. That’s not perfect,’ Rafferty said.

There was something on the girdle. Ayala moved the focus over to it.

‘That’s just a laser inscription. It’s not an inclusion. It’s part of the security. All expensive diamonds are laser-etched with a serial number.’

‘Ayala.’ Rafferty looked at him as if he were an idiot, her hands planted on her hips.

‘What?’

‘Think about it.’

‘What?’

‘I’m only going to say this once. They’re. Not. Diamonds.’

‘I bloody know that, woman.’

‘So, why then, Bertie boy, do they have a laser inscription on them that would only be applied to a diamond?’

‘Huh.’

Ayala sat there, flummoxed, while Rafferty went in search of someone who might be able to decipher the codes. By the time she returned, Ayala had begun to write down a list of each code inscribed in the stones in the hopes of finding a pattern.

Zane followed Rafferty inside, pulled up a chair back-to-front, and sat down near Ayala. ‘I hear we’ve got some diamonds which aren’t diamonds which are inscribed like diamonds. Sounds fun.’

‘Yeah. We were inspecting the fake stones and found laser inscriptions on the girdles, like on real, valuable diamonds.’

‘Is that the list of codes?’ Zane said. ‘Mind if I take a look? Codes are kinda my thing.’

Without waiting for permission, he snatched up the list. His jaw dropped as he read.

‘What is it, Zane?’ Rafferty asked. ‘Are they random gibberish designed to make the fakes look good, or what?’

‘They’re not gibberish,’ he said slowly. ‘They’re Bitcoin addresses.’

‘And what are they?’

‘Cryptocurrency. Digital money.’

‘How much are they worth?’ Rafferty asked.

‘Let’s find out.’

Zane went to fetch his laptop. When he returned, he loaded up his own bitcoin wallet and executed a digital transfer from the 30-bit wallet denoted by the first code on the list.

Successfully redeemed: 50 Bitcoins.

‘Holy shit. How many of these codes are there?’

‘Seven hundred and twenty.’

‘If each of these Bitcoin wallets holds fifty Bitcoins, then you’re sitting on thirty-two thousand Bitcoins.’

‘What’s that worth in pounds sterling?’ Rafferty asked.

Zane clicked through to find the current exchange rate of Bitcoins to GBP. ‘These stones are worth just north of ten million pounds.’

M
onday April 13th 15:00

The morgue was as quiet as ever. Morton passed a diener in the hallway, and but for a nod, the morgue assistant might as well have been a ghost in the night.

Chiswick could be heard singing loudly as he worked. It wasn’t a song that Morton recognised, but then Chiswick wasn’t much of a singer. As Morton approached Exam Room 4, he heard the whir of an electric motor. Chiswick was busy cutting open a corpse.

When he saw Morton lurking in the hallway, Chiswick gave him a quizzical glance, killed power to the motor, and emerged wearing a plastic bib that was streaked with blood.

‘David. To what do I owe the pleasure?’ Chiswick extended a bloody-gloved hand.

Morton looked at the hand and then back up at Chiswick.

‘Ah. Right. Sorry about that.’ Chiswick wiped his hand down his chest.

‘Do you have a minute? I’d like to talk about an old case you worked. Amoy Yacobi.’ Morton watched the coroner carefully for a reaction.

The coroner didn’t react. His brow furrowed up as if he was trying to recall the name. Finally, he said, ‘What about him?’

‘You remember the case?’

‘If it’s the one I’m thinking of, it’d be hard to forget. He was the guy they found hanging from a meat hook over Smithfield’s way, right?’