The Loyal Servant (14 page)

Caroline waved at them and smiled, then turned back to Tate. ‘I’m doing this for Martin.’ She lowered her voice. ‘What have you managed to dig up so far?’

Tate extinguished her cigarette under the toe of a boot. ‘I’ve got a contact in the Met.’ She kicked the stub away.

‘Yes?’

‘No joy – there’s no record anywhere of your missing evidence. And your disappearing policeman applied for a transfer into plain clothes ages ago.’

‘If there’s no record at all then it must go higher than Inspector Leary. Only someone with real clout could tamper with computer records. Don’t you see? That’s proof there’s something really dodgy going on.’ Caroline shuffled out of the way as a man on crutches hobbled past her. ‘What’s next then?’

‘Next?’

‘What else are you looking at?’ Caroline asked.

‘I haven’t worked that out yet.’

Caroline shook her head. ‘Haven’t worked it out? You’re not taking this seriously enough.’ She looked Tate up and down. ‘Don’t forget – I still have the stick.’

Tate grabbed her arm. ‘You can’t renege on our deal now.’

‘Can’t I?’

Tate pulled Caroline closer. ‘Don’t you forget I know about your affair with Martin Fox.’

Caroline dragged her arm away. ‘What are you saying?’

Tate let out a long breath. ‘I’m sorry. That was out of order. Forget it.’ She reached for another cigarette. ‘What do you suggest I look into next?’

Caroline bit her lip and stared at the journalist. She should never have told her about Martin.
So bloody stupid
.

‘It’s all right – honestly – your secret’s safe with me.’ Tate lit the cigarette and drew down a lungful of smoke.

‘Get your contact in the Met to take a look at the suicide note. It must have turned up a little while after Martin died. There’s an outside chance the actual date it turned up was recorded on the system. That would at least prove it wasn’t part of the original evidence haul.’

Tate puffed a cloud of smoke above her head. ‘I’ll get on to it tomorrow.’

Behind them the automatic doors slid open again and another casualty staggered through the exit. This man had a thick dressing taped to his forehead and his arm in a sling. Caroline dodged out of his way.

‘Frank!’ Tate rushed towards him. ‘What have you done to your arm?’

‘Dislocated shoulder. They’ve popped it back in, but it hurts like buggery, worse than it did before,’ the man said. ‘I’m drugged up to the eyeballs too.’ He shoved his good hand into a pocket and threw a set of keys at Tate. She stuck out a hand and caught them without looking. ‘You’re gonna have to drive me home,’ he said and started walking unsteadily towards the car park.

‘I’ll be right there.’ Tate turned to Caroline. ‘As you’re here you might as well take this from me now.’ She reached into her bag and pulled out a fuchsia pink mobile phone. ‘It’s untraceable. Pay-as-you-go. Use cash to top it up. My number’s already programmed in. From now on don’t call me on anything else.’

‘Untraceable? What do you mean?’

‘It’s not linked to you so there’s no need to worry about using it.’

‘I don’t understand.’ Caroline took the phone and stared down at it. She flipped it over in her hand.

‘It’s just a regular phone.’

‘I still don’t underst—’

‘It’s standard procedure.’

Caroline frowned at her.

‘Do you have any idea how easy it is to listen to people’s voicemails? Just punch in a factory setting PIN and bingo.’

‘Voicemails? But I don’t see—’

‘Using an untraceable phone is a precaution I take with all my government whistleblowers.’

18

Angela Tate sat down and stared at Frank Carter across the desk. ‘Should you even be in today?’ She jabbed a finger at him. ‘You’re not much cop with only one arm.’

Frank plucked at the sling wrapped right around his left arm and shoulder with his other hand. ‘I can use it when I have to. Meantime I’ve got everyone running round after me, making cups of coffee; nipping out for fags; treating me to their last Jaffa Cake. It’s all good.’ He leaned back in his chair. ‘Just don’t tell anyone.’

‘What are you up here for anyway? How is the picture desk surviving without you?’

‘There’s no one downstairs. No one to treat me like a returning war hero. I’m getting properly pampered up here.’

From somewhere under the desk a Nokia ringtone sounded. Angela leaned down to Jason Morris’ console and tugged at the top drawer. It was locked. She searched frantically in her handbag for the key and found it right at the bottom, attached to its twin on a tiny silver ring.

‘I don’t know why I bother to lock this thing.’ She fumbled with the lock. ‘It’s more trouble than it’s worth.’ She yanked open the drawer and snatched up the phone just as it stopped ringing. ‘Bollocks. How long before I lose the keys and can’t get the bastard thing open at all?’

‘Give one of them to me. I’ll look after it.’

Angela stared at him.

‘What? Don’t you trust me?’

‘Promise me, no rifling.’

‘Scouts’ honour.’ He lifted his bandaged arm and saluted with three fingers flat against his forehead.

‘You were never a Boy Scout.’ Angela threaded a key from the ring.

‘No… but I once camped with the Girl Guides.’ He let out a satisfied sigh. ‘Got a lot of badges that weekend.’

Angela held the keys in her open palm and proffered both to Frank. ‘Take your pick.’

He peered at the keys. ‘They’re not the same.’

‘What?’

‘The keys don’t match.’

‘No wonder I’ve been having so much trouble with the bloody lock.’ She threw both keys in the top drawer, slammed it shut and started tugging at the handle of the drawer beneath. ‘This place is falling apart. When was the last time a piece of rubbish office furniture was replaced?’

Frank started to wave at her.

‘What’s up with you?’

He pointed behind her.

‘What is it?’ She turned to see the editor marching towards her. He called out her name.

‘Have you got a moment?’ he said.

She looked down at the little screen on her pay-as-you-go mobile, waiting for the voicemail alert to bleep at her. ‘Not right now, Dominic. I’m expecting an important call.’ The screen faded to its energy save mode without making a sound.

‘Yes. Right now,’ he said.

She hit a speed dial option on the phone and waited.

‘Did you hear me?’

Angela threw Frank a glance, which he refused to acknowledge. She mouthed the word ‘coward’ and listened as her call was transferred to Caroline Barber’s voicemail. ‘Of course I heard you,’ she said. ‘I’m just a little tied up at the moment.’

The editor plucked the phone from her hand.

‘That can wait. I can’t.’

‘What the…?’ She snatched the phone back and stood her ground.

‘I want you in my office now.’

Angela folded her arms.

‘Please?’

‘Do you see that, Frank?’

Frank was making himself look busy, adjusting his sling.

‘The magic word,’ she said. ‘Works every time.’ She followed Dominic Evans into his office, where he gestured for her to sit down.

‘Baby keeping you up, is it?’ she said, and pointed to his face, his red eyes, the grey bags underneath. ‘How old is it now?’ She sat down.

‘
Isiah’s
four months.’

‘Children are such a blessing, aren’t they?’ She crossed her legs and relaxed back into the leather chair.

Dominic Evans sat down in a chair on the other side of the desk, carefully adjusted so that despite his diminutive stature he could sit at a higher level than his visitors. Angela suspected he thought it gave him more authority, and the means with which to intimidate whoever was sitting across the desk from him. All it actually did was lift his short little legs off the floor so they swung backwards and forwards like a small child’s. Let him try his pathetic little power games with her. She was filing copy when Dominic Evans was still handing in his English homework.

‘What can I help you with, Dominic?’

He rubbed both hands across his stubble and let out a tiny groan. Was it a word? Angela wondered whether or not she was expected to respond.

‘I don’t want you to think you’ve been singled out. I’ll be talking to every permanent member of staff in due course.’

She sat perfectly still, waiting. She had a feeling a hammer blow was coming and she hoped it would be quick. And painless.

Evans blew out his cheeks.

Come on, you little rat – get on with it.

‘You don’t need me to tell you the industry’s going through massive upheaval at the moment.’ He grabbed the edge of his desk with both hands and wheeled his chair towards it. ‘And I’m sure you know we’re not immune.’ He cleared his throat. ‘We need to look at streamlining the operation. Make savings where we can.’

Here it comes.

Evans looked down at a printed table of figures sitting on the desk.

She didn’t have time for this. ‘Am I a liability or an asset?’

He looked up at her.

‘Do I appear on the credit or debit side of that little balance sheet of yours?’ Angela uncrossed her legs and leaned forward. ‘I’m guessing the number-crunchers in accounts have been very busy.’ She got up and leaned over the desk.

‘Please sit down, Angela.’

‘I’d prefer to stand.’

He blinked at her.

‘Have they told you just how expensive it would be to make me redundant?’ she said. ‘Do you know how many years I’ve been here?’

‘I’m sure you’re going to tell me anyw—.’

‘Thirty years, Dominic.’

‘Maybe it’s time to take things a little easier.’

‘So I am on the hit list?’

‘Nothing’s set in stone. I just wanted to sound you out – test the waters.’ He studied the page of numbers for a moment. ‘If you did agree to go now, the package would be much more generous than if you waited.’

‘You mean waited to be dragged kicking and screaming from the building?’

Evans smiled. ‘That I would give money to see.’

‘I’m bloody good at my job. Does that count for nothing these days?’ She shook her head. ‘It’s OK – I already know the answer to that.’ She walked towards the door. ‘If you’re quite finished I’m going to get back to that award-winning work of mine.’

She’d opened the door and was halfway out before Evans spoke again.

‘You really should give the redundancy package serious consideration.’

‘Not interested.’ She stepped into the corridor. ‘I’ve got work to do.’

‘What are you working on today?’ he shouted after her.

She turned back. ‘Actually, while I’m here…’ She pointed at the spreadsheet on Evans’ desk. ‘Have you accounted for Jason Morris in your number crunching?’

Evans turned the sheet over so that it was facing blank side up.

‘Can you at least tell me if you plan to replace him?’

‘We’re implementing a recruitment freeze as part of the rationalisation process.’

‘You could have just said “no”.’

‘Jason will not be replaced.’

‘In that case, can you give me the copy he filed? I’d like to see if I can work some of it up into a story.’

‘He didn’t file any copy.’

‘Really? None at all?’

Evans threw his arms wide. ‘He was working undercover – he thought it might jeopardise his position.’

‘OK then – I’ve done the odd bit of undercover work myself. Maybe I can pick up where Jason left off.’

Evans smiled. A slow wide smile.

‘This is one assignment that would be beyond even your enormous powers of deception.’

The mobile phone bleeped in her hand.

‘Why?’ she said. ‘What was Jason working on?’

‘Morris had infiltrated the south-east chapter of England for the English. Have you heard of them?’

Angela shook her head. ‘Neo-Nazis by any chance?’

‘Pretty much. They’re new. And a charming bunch they are too. They make the English Defence League look like the Women’s Institute. I don’t think you’d fit in, somehow.’ He smiled again.

‘Jason must have given you some idea where his investigation was going.’

Evans shook his head. ‘He wanted to stay as deep undercover as possible.’

Angela started to turn away, trying to remember the last time she’d actually seen Jason in the office. ‘Do you know who cleared out Jason’s desk?’

Evans shrugged. ‘The cleaners, I expect. Why?’

‘Where did all his stuff end up?’

‘I’ve no idea. Why are you so interested?’

Angela didn’t bother to answer. She slammed Evans’ door and hurried down the corridor.

*

She looked at the hastily written address on the scrap of paper and scanned the row of houses from the other side of the street. 22a Gloucester Terrace occupied the lower ground floor of the converted Victorian house two in from the end of the terrace.

Angela scooted between parked cars and hurried across the quiet road just off the main drag in Kentish Town. She peered down the steep asphalted steps leading to Jason Morris’ basement flat and pushed open the squeaky gate.

Through the glass panels in the front door she could see a pile of unopened envelopes and fast-food flyers. She cupped her hands around her eyes and pressed her face closer to the glass. The coat rack next to the door was empty and through an open doorway at the far end of the hall she could just make out a torn curtain hanging from the rail above the window. She moved on to the large sash window to the left of the front door and strained to focus beyond the grime on the glass into what must have been Jason Morris’ living room. A three-seater sofa was pushed up against one wall, its cushions piled on the floor next to it. Cables snaked out of the wall in the opposite corner above a stack of old newspapers.

‘Excuse me?’ A voice boomed in her ear.

Angela started and spun round. A compact Asian man, with a bald head and a neat beard, was standing at the bottom of the steps, frowning at her.

‘Can I help you?’ he said and moved closer.

‘Who are you?’

‘I could ask you the same question.’ He studied her face. ‘I’m the landlord. I live upstairs.’ He pointed to a grander flight of stone steps leading up to the main door of the building.

‘So you know the man who used to live here?’ she said.

He nodded. ‘Such a tragic story. He died.’

‘I know. I used to work with him. Angela Tate.’ She extended a hand.

‘You work at the insurance company?’ He shook her hand and looked her up and down, his gaze lingering on her legs.

Angela nodded and smiled, wondering just how deep undercover Jason had gone. ‘I’m a… loss adjuster,’ she said. It was the only insurance-related role she could think of. She gestured towards the front door with an upturned thumb.

‘Do you know who moved his things out of his flat?’

‘His parents. Though there wasn’t much left by the time they arrived, of course.’

Angela glanced back through the living room window.

‘Is that why you’re here?’ the man asked. ‘For the insurance claim?’ He peered into the living room too. ‘The thieves took almost everything.’

Angela removed her notepad from her bag.

‘Some of it was mine,’ he said.

Angela scribbled
Jason – ROBBED!!!
on her pad. ‘Just to confirm the details I’ve been given are correct, the burglary happened when exactly?’

‘Last month. The 17th.’

‘March 17th?’ Angela wrote the date on her pad and underlined it.

The man nodded. ‘Just the day after Mr Morris was killed.’