The Reckoning (53 page)

‘Well, don’t taunt him into being brave, will you? I can live with a timid stalker.’

‘Me too. And since I don’t seem to have a choice about it at the moment, that’ll have to do.’ She stood on her tiptoes and kissed me. ‘What’s for dinner?’

‘Oh, I see. Like that, is it?’

‘Well, why else would I move in with you?’

‘Someone said something about wanting to be with me and how it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. That was you, wasn’t it?’

She shrugged as she sidled past me, the picture of innocence. ‘Do you know, I can’t quite recall.’

I went to work the following morning with a smile on my face, a few minutes behind Maeve. She had insisted on getting a head start so no one would guess we had started our journey together. I hadn’t the heart to tell her it was probably the worst-kept secret in the Met; Liv had worked it out within minutes of joining the team, and she could hardly be the only one. There were natural hazards to working in a room full of coppers and not having any privacy was one of them, but I let Maeve have her solitary journey. When I arrived I greeted her with a cheery ‘Good morning’ in case anyone suspected we had done that part of the day several hours earlier, and in quite a different way.

Godley waved me into his office as soon as he saw I was there.

‘I’m just going to interview Lee Bancroft.’

‘Can I sit in?’

He looked apologetic. ‘Best not. I want to keep the room clear. Just me and Pettifer, him and his solicitor. You can watch on the monitors.’

I was sorry to miss out though I didn’t argue. I got on well with Godley, but he was still a superintendent and it was useful to keep that in mind, I found. I had never known him to pull rank – he was confident enough not to need to – but the rank was there nonetheless, and he’d reached it for a reason. I nodded instead and tried to look as if I didn’t mind.

‘Have you had a chance to think about the leak?’

‘I have.’

‘And?’

‘I’ve got some ideas,’ I said. ‘Leave it with me. I want to talk to the guys who processed Murray, Roberts and McKenzie yesterday. I also want to check what personal effects Felix Crowther was carrying when he was brought to the morgue.’

‘Why?’ Godley was being uncharacteristically abrupt and I recalled that he was personally interested in this, that whoever had passed on word about the Bancrofts was probably the person who had given Skinner the superintendent’s home address.

‘I will tell you, you know. But you might as well wait until later, when I’ve got facts rather than ideas.’

He considered it for a second and I knew he wasn’t happy, but he let it go. ‘All right. I’ll mind my own business.’

‘It will be today, boss. We’ll know one way or the other by this afternoon.’

‘You sound very sure.’

‘I have a reasonable idea of who was responsible. Don’t you?’

‘I think so. There’s an obvious candidate.’ He went and looked out of the window, his back turned to me. It wasn’t like him to be so rude, but it was entirely in character – and understandable – to be upset about being betrayed. And there was no mistaking it; the person who had passed on Godley’s personal details had done so in the full knowledge of how they would be used, and why, and to possess them in the first place he had needed Godley’s trust. However you cut it, they needed catching and they needed to be punished for what they’d done. I was looking forward to playing my part. It almost made up for being relegated to the cheap seats for Lee Bancroft’s interview.

I was far from being the only one who wanted to know what he said. The meeting room was crowded, the chairs all full by the time I made it in there, having spent an interesting half-hour on the phone and a further twenty minutes haring around the nick sorting a few things out. I took up a place at the back of the room, which happened to be my preference anyway. I liked being able to make a quick exit.

Right at the front, Derwent was making a big deal out of shushing people as Godley and Pettifer took it in turns to ask a stony-faced Bancroft to explain what he’d done, and why, and how many times. ‘We want to be able to hear what he’s got to say, not what you got up to last night.’

I found Maeve’s face in the crowd and raised my eyebrows, enjoying the fact that I could see the blood rise to her cheeks from the other side of the room.

Up in the corner of the screen there was a box that showed the police side of the room, and although the image was small, I could read the interviewers’ faces quite clearly. They were far too professional to show their distaste in any obvious way, but knowing them as I did, I could see that they were increasingly fed up with the lack of cooperation they were getting from Lee, who was on his third ‘no comment’ since I’d walked into the room. His voice came all the way from his boots and he looked bigger, if anything, on-screen. His solicitor, whom I knew to be a man of average build, was about half his size.

Lee’s clothes had been bloody after his run-in with Skinner’s thugs, but someone had got hold of a clean T-shirt and jeans for him. The T-shirt clung to his pectoral muscles and looked tight on his arms.

‘Look at the size of him,’ Ben Dornton marvelled.

‘He’s not that big. The camera adds ten pounds. Everyone knows that.’ Maitland was a hard man to impress, but in this case he was taking the piss for the sake of annoying Dornton, who fell for it from a height.

‘Ten pounds? You wouldn’t see ten pounds on that body. He’s a giant.’

‘That’s pure beef,’ someone else commented. ‘Not an ounce of fat.’

‘He didn’t do it all the hard way. He had a couple of different types of steroid on the go, from what I saw in his flat.’

‘You’re just jealous, Rob.’ Maitland lolled in his chair, his head tipped back so he could see my reaction upside-down.

‘Oh, definitely. I want to bulk up. I must ask him where he gets his T-shirts.’

‘Only if you want to look like a boy-band reject,’ Liv said tartly.

‘For the last time, shut up.’ Derwent glared around at us. ‘If you’re not interested, get out.’

‘You’re not missing much.’ Keith Bryce was standing beside me, his hands in his pockets. ‘He hasn’t said anything interesting yet, has he?’

‘Not specially. Unless you count “no comment”. But that doesn’t mean he won’t.’ Derwent turned back to the screen, watching it with the sort of intensity that had to be exhausting to maintain.

On the monitor, Godley was becoming, for him, irate. ‘You told us Patricia Farinelli was dead. That was a lie. She was alive at the time, but she wouldn’t have been for long. Were you prepared to allow her to die? Was that what you wanted?’

Lee looked through him, a half-smile on his face.

‘Tell us how you selected your victims.’

‘No comment.’

‘Was it you or your brother who came up with the idea?’

Silence, but Lee’s gaze switched from the back wall of the room to Godley’s face.

‘He was the talkative one, wasn’t he? He was the charmer. You’re just the muscle. Without him, you don’t have anything to say for yourself, do you?’

‘Have you found out who killed him yet?’

‘He speaks,’ Bryce murmured, and when I looked around he was smiling.

Pettifer leaned on the table. ‘We’re asking the questions, Lee. You’re under arrest on charges of kidnap, false imprisonment, attempted murder and multiple counts of rape. You might like to think about that rather than worrying about us doing our jobs.’

‘Which of them did it? Which of them shot him?’ Lee’s shoulders were bunched up around his ears with tension. ‘Have you even bothered to find out?’

‘It hasn’t been a priority for us,’ Godley said quietly. ‘We’ve been more concerned with your victims than your brother. If we could clear up a few things about them, then we can concentrate on Drew.’

‘Victims?’

‘Cheyenne Skinner.’

He made a movement that was pure impatience. ‘We didn’t kill her. She died.’

‘You raped her.’

A laugh. ‘She just tried to play hard to get. I wasn’t having that. She liked it.’

‘That’s not what we’ve heard. And not what the forensic evidence suggests.’

‘She didn’t like being kept.’

‘You made a mistake with her, didn’t you? You thought she was older than she was. You thought she lived alone, so you could make her disappear like you made Patricia disappear. You must have been very annoyed when you found out the truth.’

‘It was unfortunate.’

‘Why didn’t you let her go?’

‘It was too late for that.’

‘You’d already raped her. You’d beaten her up. Withheld food from her.’

‘She tried to push the boundaries all the time. She needed to learn the house rules.’

‘I can’t believe Godley’s getting him to talk,’ Maitland said.

‘It’s the same thing he did with Skinner.’ Maeve was still looking at the screen. ‘He wanted us to find his daughter so he told us everything we asked. Just goes to show everyone has something they love, no matter how bad they are.’

‘The house rules. What were they?’ Godley asked.

Lee shrugged. ‘Do what you’re told.’

‘Patricia did what she was told, didn’t she? It didn’t seem to do her much good.’

Lee looked away again, his expression bored.

‘Why don’t you want to talk about Patricia?’

‘I don’t see the point.’

‘Her evidence is going to put you in prison for life,’ Pettifer said. ‘You should be telling us your version. Give yourself a chance in court.’

‘You’re not interested in helping me. You’re just nosy.’ He shifted in his chair. ‘I’m thirsty.’

Pettifer poured him a glass of water from the jug behind him and pushed it across the table. ‘So what if I am nosy? Tell us about Patricia.’

‘I don’t know anyone of that name.’

‘Okay. Let’s call her the woman you kept hidden in your uncle’s house for eighteen months. Let’s call her the one you starved and terrorised to the brink of death. Does that help to jog your memory?’

‘It’s just not ringing any bells.’ The mocking smile was back on Lee’s face.

‘Are you saying that you don’t think of her as a person, Lee?’ Godley’s voice was quiet. ‘You didn’t treat her like one. You treated her like a slave. Would it help if we called her the slave?’

His smile broadened. ‘Your word. Not mine.’

‘What would your word be?’

‘When I talked to it – which wasn’t often – I called it “cunt”.’

He had said it for effect and he would have been delighted by the reaction it got from the team. I was not under the impression I was surrounded by choirboys, but there was a rumble of disapproval all the same. I glanced across at Maeve, whose lips were pressed together tightly. She had told me a little about finding Patricia, and about the story she had told Godley. I had gathered that Maeve was deeply bothered by what had happened to her and I knew that she was trying not to show how upset she was. It was chilling to hear a person dismissed in those terms, but it was hardly a surprise to find out Lee felt that way.

Godley hadn’t so much as flickered. ‘Why do you feel that way about her?’

‘Don’t waste your time and mine.’

‘You used her. You treated her like she was worthless.’

‘It stopped being fun. So it got replaced.’ Lee turned to his solicitor. ‘Can we stop this now? I’ve got a headache.’

The solicitor raised his eyebrows and Godley shook his head. ‘A few more questions. Then we’ll take a break.’

Lee folded his arms with the air of one who had finished cooperating for the time being.

I leaned towards Bryce. ‘Are you interested in this?’

‘Not specially,’ he murmured.

‘Can I have a word, then? Outside?’

He was too experienced an officer to ask any more questions; he moved past me towards the door with neither haste nor fuss. I followed him a couple of seconds later, checking my watch as if I had somewhere else to be. It was a wholly unnecessary bit of pantomime – while Lee Bancroft was in interview I could have worn a gorilla mask and streaked the squad room without attracting any attention whatsoever.

Bryce had gone into the small meeting room and I followed, shutting the door. There was absolutely no point in mincing my words.

‘The boss is pretty sure there’s a leak from this squad. Someone’s been keeping Skinner informed about what we’ve been doing.’

Not a muscle moved in the long face. ‘That sounds likely. He has always been well connected.’

‘The obvious question is who.’

‘Yes, it is.’ The heavy-lidded eyes stared into mine. He was giving nothing away for free.

‘The boss asked me to do some sniffing around.’

‘He must think very highly of you.’

I smiled a little. ‘I don’t think that’s why. I haven’t been directly involved with this case, or with Skinner. He can be pretty sure it wasn’t me.’

‘If you say so. There’s a lot of other people it could be, though.’

‘Anyone in particular?’

‘You first.’

He was going to make me say it. I braced myself. ‘Have you ever wondered about Josh Derwent? You’ve worked with him for a long time.’

Bryce’s shoulders sagged an inch. ‘Ah. I hoped you wouldn’t have thought of that.’

‘Well?’

‘I never wanted to think he might be on the take. He’s a good lad. He works hard, in his own way.’

‘He’s been up to his neck in the case. There aren’t many people who would be better placed to pass on information to John Skinner. And Godley trusts him. They have a friendship outside work. He would have been one of the few to have known his address.’

‘He would. Have you talked to him?’

‘Not yet.’

‘What about the boss?’

‘I need evidence.’

‘Yes, you do. What are you thinking?’

‘When Crowther was shot at Lee Bancroft’s flat, he was carrying two phones. One was his own iPhone, for personal use. The other was a cheapie job that he was obviously using for work. I got the telephone intelligence unit to download the messages off it and bingo, that’s how they were communicating with the person in this squad. So if you don’t mind helping me have a look through Derwent’s things, we might be able to find the phone he’s been using to communicate with Crowther.’

‘Won’t he have dumped it by now? Given that it all went tits-up yesterday?’