Closer Still, page 23
part #8 of A Brodie Farrell Mystery Series
She’d wondered just when she should break her news. If she should declare herself right away, so they both knew what they were talking about, or if she should wait until they had the coffee in front of them and she could see his reaction. She was still wondering when Joe took the initiative. Putting an unexpectedly proprietorial arm around her shoulders he steered her towards his car and said, ‘So you want to be a hooker.’
‘He thought … He thought …’ Evie could hardly get it out. Her voice shook, and her hands shook on the kitchen table, spilling the contents of her mug. Brodie fought the urge to help. The girl needed to do this. It wouldn’t be the end of the nightmare. But it might be the beginning of the end.
‘He thought I wanted to work for him. Because he was a pimp and I was a prostitute. I’d gone there to meet my father, and he was talent-spotting for his cathouse!’
‘Why did he pull the knife?’ asked Brodie softly.
Evie shook her head despairingly. ‘I don’t know. There was no reason. It was like …like that was what he did with his hands. Smokers play with a cigarette, drinkers toy with a drink, geeks play with a computer mouse, and he took out a knife because he’d nothing better to do with his hands. He wasn’t threatening me with it. I mean, I thought he was, when he reached into his coat and out it came. I thought, Dear God in heaven, he thinks I’m here to blackmail him and this is his answer! But I think I was wrong.’
Brodie nodded. ‘A woman who knew him told me he’d do that. That it didn’t mean anything. He used the knife instead of his finger – to make a point, to keep his place on a page, to touch things … She said it was mostly a habit, and a bit of power play. He did it because it held people’s attention. He’d probably done it so long he’d forgotten it wasn’t entirely normal.’
Behind the veil of her hair Evie was struggling with the emotions she’d tried so long to suppress. And the battle went on because each was as strong as another. Was that good news or bad, that though her father had drawn a knife on her he often drew them on other people too? Was it better to believe that he wasn’t threatening her or worse, because that made what followed worse? If she’d turned and run away, would everything have been all right? Was that all she’d have had to do to keep the sky from falling?
‘So what happened?’ Brodie prompted her gently.
Shocked and frightened, the girl had tried to explain the misunderstanding. Tried to get out the magic words: ‘I’m not a whore, I’m your daughter.’ But she’d rehearsed this so often in the privacy of her own head, and it was different on a quantum level from this. She’d watched the puzzlement turn to hope and delight in his imagined face as she built up to her revelation. And she was reluctant to let that go. To admit that it wasn’t possible to salvage it from where they now stood.
Loomis had stood grinning at her tongue-tied stammering. He used the point of the knife to lift her hair away from her face. ‘It’s OK to be nervous. Ask anyone who’s been for a job interview. Get in the car, we’ll do the practical, then if you measure up we can talk terms and conditions.’ He still had his left arm about her shoulders, the tip of the knife against her cheek.
‘What happened?’ Brodie murmured again.
‘I elbowed him in the belly,’ whispered Evie. ‘And stamped on his foot. And his arms flew out as he lost his balance, and I grabbed the knife out of his hand.’
If she’d been a sixteen-stone bouncer with a tattoo he’d never have let her close enough to hurt him. But he wasn’t expecting trouble. He’d thought all he had to do was put the fear of God into her. But Evie was her mother’s daughter; and actually, she was her father’s daughter and her brother’s sister as well. Pushed like that, her instinct was to push back. She held the knife out at arm’s length, crouching behind it, keeping him at bay. ‘Keep your fucking hands off me!’ she yelled. ‘I’m not what you think! I’m your …’
But if Joe Loomis had been scared of kids waving knives he’d never have got where he was today. He lifted his narrow shoulders in a negligent shrug. ‘I know what you are.’ He didn’t keep his distance. He came towards her, reaching for the knife.
The long car was at her back: she couldn’t have run now if she’d tried. Doing anything would have involved lowering the knife, and then he’d have had her. She swung at him.
She thought, she really thought, he’d dance back out of range. That he’d see she was serious and back off. When the knife buried itself in Joe Loomis’s side, they were staring at one another from a range of inches and it was impossible to say which of them was most surprised. Evie gave a little yelp, and letting go of the knife cringed back against the car. Loomis went on regarding her in mute astonishment until he sank to his knees.
‘And I ran,’ whispered Evie. ‘Then I ran. Two minutes earlier I could have run, and he probably wouldn’t even have chased me. Now when I ran I left my father on the ground with a knife in him, and I didn’t even call for help! I ran back to my car, and I drove home, and it was two days before I even told my mother!’
Brodie found herself fighting back sympathetic tears. ‘Listen to me. There are two things you need to know. What happened wasn’t your fault. You were defending yourself against what you believed to be an imminent assault. Joe Loomis died with his own knife in his lung not because of what you did, but because of who he was. He was always going to die pretty much like that. If it hadn’t been you, it would have been someone else.
‘And the other thing is …’ She paused. But the girl had a right to know. It wouldn’t make things easier now, but later it might. ‘Evie – Joe knew who you were. He knew who you were when you phoned and asked to see him. He knew because your mother told him. Do you remember that day Dev brought her home? She was upset and had a bruise on her face. Did she tell you why?’
Silently, Evie shook her head.
Brodie sighed. Secrets, secrets; and between them they’d destroyed a decent family. ‘She’d been to see him. She knew you intended to approach him, and she didn’t want him drawing you into his world. She warned him off. She wanted him to lie to you. To say you’d got it wrong. To laugh in your face, and send you away so embarrassed you’d never want to see him again. She thought she was protecting you.’
Evie’s eyes were perplexed. She didn’t understand. And if it was true, didn’t it make it worse? He was going to rape her …!
Brodie reached across the table and folded her hands over the girl’s. ‘I think she succeeded. I think Joe recognised that, though he’d been no father to you for twenty years, at least he hadn’t done you any harm. And that could be about to change. I think he decided the best thing he could do was scare you off. Everything he said and did was to that end. He thought you’d scream and run a mile, and avoid him like the plague ever after. Evie – I think he was trying to help.’
They were still sitting there, holding hands across the table, eyes locked – Evie’s hollow pits of slow comprehension, Brodie’s tear-bright with compassion – when there was a knock at the door. After a moment Brodie freed her hands and stood up. ‘That’ll be the police.’
There were now three separate parties converging on Battle Alley: Detective Superintendent Deacon and his prisoner; Stretton’s mother and, apparently, his father in the care of Detective Constable Huxley; and his sister and, to no one’s surprise at all, Brodie Farrell accompanied by Detective Constable Jill Meadows. But free flow of transport was still a problem. It was going to take time for any of the cars to find a way into the town centre, and only when they could get together, under one roof if not in one room, could all the little bits of information be glued together into something that – if it didn’t actually hold water – at least looked like a pot.
(Detectives and archaeologists have a lot in common. Both dig deep in awkward and often dirty places, and may not know how the sherds they find will fit until the very end. All the same, Deacon hadn’t the patience to be an archaeologist. It’s hard to intimidate a midden.)
At the same time Superintendent Fuller had his people on the streets, actively promoting calm and breaking up any gatherings large enough to look like a target. Even with Stretton in custody, it was too soon to say there would be no bombing here today. So the police station was manned essentially by Sergeant McKinney and the radio room staff when SOCO called in from Romney Road. McKinney was wondering what to do with the call when DS Voss limped up the back stairs and became the station’s CID presence. He waved the earpiece at Voss and Voss took it.
Daniel was still with him. He’d no reason to go anywhere else and in any event no way of getting there. But he could make no sense of that half of the conversation that he could hear.
Voss said: ‘Where had it been? Which is pretty much what he told the cousins, of course. So when it turned up they sent it to the address on the label. What’s it like – soft, rigid?’
There was a pause in which Daniel could hear the sound of the other voice without being able to pick out words. Then Voss said, ‘Not until I’m sure it’s necessary. The state this town’s in, an Army truck driving up Romney Road will send it ballistic. Don’t handle it. Put it somewhere it won’t be disturbed – and if Hux turns up, don’t let him in the same room! I’m on my way.’
Finally: ‘No – I’m not an ATO, and I don’t have a death wish. But I don’t want to throw petrol on the flames if it’s just a souvenir-stall camel from the family back home. Do nothing. I’m on my way.’ He was heading for the door as he gave the earpiece back. Daniel fell into line behind him. They’d reached the steps before Voss realised. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’
‘I have no idea,’ said Daniel honestly. ‘But you’re not exactly overmanned at the moment. I may not be much help, but I ought to be better than no one at all.’
Voss gave a grin and gave up. ‘Come on then. There’s no reason to suppose you’ll be in any more danger there than here.’
‘No,’ agreed Daniel. ‘Er …where?’
Scene of Crime Officer Billy Mills had still been working in the Dhazi cousins’ house when the parcel van drew up outside. ‘Package for Mr Salma.’
Mills frowned. ‘Who’s that, then?’
The courier shrugged. ‘Beats me. But this is the address on his suitcase.’
There was a covering note from the airline. The case had been found on a carousel in Luxembourg. There was nothing to be gained by speculating how it had got there. They were now returning it, with their apologies and some complimentary air miles, and hoped its temporary absence had not impacted too much upon Mr Salma’s holiday.
Before he was a civilian SOCO, Billy Mills was a uniformed sergeant at Battle Alley. He’d learnt the science stuff, but he’d always known about crime. After the courier had gone he turned to Reg Vickers who was helping him. ‘Salma is Daoud?’
Constable Vickers had no ambitions to be a detective. He liked dealing with what Deacon referred to as ‘The bastard public’. But Uniform see a lot of criminals too, and criminal practice is second nature to any police officer who’s been paying attention. ‘Well, he wasn’t travelling as himself or he’d have been picked up. Did you find a passport?’
Mills shook his head. Usually it takes surgery to separate law-abiding travellers from their passports. If Daoud’s wasn’t found on his body it was because he’d hidden it somewhere.
‘And this is his bag.’ Vickers thought back. ‘The cousins said something about a missing bag. They thought he was ripping them off – that he’d never had their heroin.’
‘And maybe he hadn’t,’ rumbled Mills. ‘Maybe what he had was Semtex.’
‘Oh shit,’ said Reg Vickers fervently, taking a step back.
Which is when they radioed Battle Alley.
They stood in a cautious circle round the table Mills had placed it on, watching the suitcase closely, listening for ticking.
‘If it’s Semtex,’ ventured Vickers, ‘shouldn’t it have been picked up at the airport?’
‘If it’s heroin it should have been, too,’ said Voss. ‘But we know security measures only pick up a fraction of what comes in.’
‘It’s a battle of wits,’ said Mills heavily. ‘The smugglers find ways round the measures we have in place; we find ways of improving those measures to catch them next time. And so on, ad bloody infinitum. Whatever else he was, Daoud was no amateur. He could have protected either of those substances against a routine airport inspection.’
‘Or it could still be his underwear,’ murmured Daniel.
The others regarded him sourly. But it was true. Even mass murderers are doing other things most of the time.
‘I’m going to have a look,’ decided Voss.
‘What?!’ Vickers’ voice climbed. ‘Not while I’m standing here you’re not.’
‘Fair enough,’ said Voss. ‘But I’m not calling in the Army, and having guys with robots and body armour sealing the street off while they go through a dead man’s smalls. This town has been on the point of meltdown for forty-eight hours. One more incident – in particular, one more incident here, where people look more like Daoud than they do like you, Reg – and we’ll have a race riot on our hands. Well, if I crack open that case and see wires I’ll risk it. But if it’s heroin – or underwear – we can handle the situation ourselves. At least we won’t make it any worse.’
‘It’s a gamble, Charlie,’ rumbled Mills. ‘If it got through airport security, there are no tests I can do on the outside to tell you what’s on the inside. If it’s a bomb, opening the case a crack might be all it needs to detonate.’
‘But why would it be a bomb? It was supposed to be on the same flight he was – why would he risk carrying an armed device? Even if it is explosives, surely he’d get them safely here and arm them at this end. This house isn’t the target, it’s the factory – or not, as the case may be, but Daoud had no interest in blowing it up. I don’t think it’s a bomb.’
‘I don’t think it’s a bomb either,’ said Billy Mills. ‘But I wouldn’t want to bet my life on it.’
Voss gave a nervous grin. ‘OK. This isn’t going to take all of us.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Goodness – it’s time for tea and doughnuts! You want to get them, Reg? And maybe Billy could help you carry them. And Daniel …’
‘And Daniel,’ said Daniel firmly, ‘has no intentions of explaining to Detective Superintendent Deacon what happened to his sergeant, his crime scene and half a square mile of his manor. You open that case, Charlie, you do it with me here.’
In the end, no one went for tea and doughnuts.
Vickers watched the door. Any more delivery men, window cleaners or elderly ladies collecting for charity would be hustled away to a safe distance with the time-honoured explanation: ‘We think it’s a gas leak.’
Daniel held the case steady on the table. He kept saying to himself, Underwear. It’s just underwear. Even terrorists need a change of underwear when they travel. Once he saw a worried expression cross Voss’s freckled features and was horribly afraid he’d said it aloud.
Billy Mills produced a variety of small cutting tools and some plastic gloves. ‘Whatever’s in it, I’m going to want to swab it when we’re finished. I don’t want the DNA tests showing that it was put together by a ginger Irishman.’
‘I’m only half Irish,’ said Voss defensively; but he pulled the gloves on.
‘And I might not have enough fingers left to swab anything by then,’ muttered Mills, ‘but let’s look on the bright side.’
In one respect they were lucky. Daoud’s bag was not rigid fibreglass but soft-bodied, made of well-used leather. This told them two things. That whatever it contained was not very volatile – if it had been, the ordinary rough-and-tumble of baggage sorting would have set it off. And that it would be possible to peep inside without disturbing the lock and hinges, two prime sites for anti-handling devices.
After some deliberation Mills chose a little craft knife with a non-magnetic blade. The blades didn’t stay sharp as long but were a safer option when you didn’t know what you were looking at. He ran his fingers over the outside of the bag, finally picking a spot – away from the corners, which would be a good place to locate something a bit delicate, but not in the middle which would be an obvious place to catch out someone who knew to avoid the corners. He made a sliver of a slit that at first didn’t even penetrate the leather. Then he pinched an edge of the cut in non-magnetic tweezers and lifting it away from the contents made the first minuscule penetration.
‘Pass me the …’ He’d laid them all out ready before he started, but Voss didn’t know their names. ‘Third from the left.’ Mills inserted the tip of a fibre-optic probe into the tiny opening.
‘Mm,’ he said thoughtfully.
‘What?’ whispered Voss, but there was no reply.
When he’d seen all the probe could show him, Mills, with fingertips as delicate as a girl’s, pushed it a little deeper and looked again. ‘Mm,’ he repeated.
‘What?’ demanded Voss. ‘What can you see?’
‘Not sure.’ Mills moved the little probe around cautiously. ‘Something … A label.’
‘Oh shit,’ whined Reg Vickers.
‘Semtex?’ asked Voss. ‘Or …Semtex written in …whatever alphabet they use in the Czech Republic?’
‘No,’ said Billy Mills slowly. ‘It’s written in English. It’s …hang on a minute, I’ve nearly got it …that’s better … yes. It’s Marks & Spencer.’
Charlie Voss straightened up slowly. The sweat was running down his face; which was odd when he felt cold to the bone. ‘You’re saying it really is his underwear.’
Mills shrugged. ‘That’s all I can see. I don’t think there’s anything that’ll blow my hand off if I open it up.’
Still struggling for composure, Voss nodded. ‘Do it.’
For safety’s sake he continued the slit across the top of the bag, extending it into a Y-shape he’d learnt by attending autopsies. Then he sat back on his heels. There were no boxes with wires protruding. There were no unreasonable quantities of deodorant cans. There wasn’t even a toy camel labelled A Present from Islamabad. There were shirts, T-shirts, sweaters, socks, a pair of shoes, a wash bag. Any one of them, packing for a week away, would have thrown in the same things.
