M. Arlidge - Little Boy Blue

They were inching forward, but painfully slowly and Sanderson wondered how long it would be before Helen smelt a rat. Time was ticking and Sanderson knew her case against Helen would have to be bulletproof before she made her move. If she fudged the execution or, worse still, was just plain wrong, it wouldn’t be Helen’s neck on the block – it would be hers.

‘Check again.’

Helen virtually barked her order at the startled manager. Peter Banyard, the new manager of the Park Street Wilkinson’s, was not used to dealing with police officers, but he knew bad manners when he saw them and bridled at the request.

‘I’m more than happy to check again, Inspector, but I can assure you that this is the complete list of all our employees.’

Helen ran her eye down them again. Jeff Armstrong, Terry Slater, Joanne Hinton, Anne Duggan, Ian McGregor… There was nobody here she recognized, no one who might be relevant.

‘Could these names be fake?’

‘Of course not,’ the aggrieved manager responded. ‘We check their ID, get National Insurance numbers, their bank details -’

‘How far does this list go back?’ Helen interrupted.

‘Eighteen months.’

‘Ok, I’ll need a list going back five years, everything you’ve got.’

‘Then I’ll need a warrant. I think we’ve already gone way beyond the call of duty -’

‘You’ll have one before the end of the day. Thank you for your time.’

Helen was already halfway out of the door, heading fast for the store exit. The fraud victims had all shopped here for several years, so it was possible their credit and debit card details had been garnered some time back. And yet… she had only known Paine for eighteen months and Angelique considerably less than that. This felt recent and Helen knew that she was missing something significant. Their killer was still out there, thinking, plotting, waiting for his moment to strike.

‘Amy Fawcett’s body is currently at the mortuary – Jim Grieves is working on a more accurate time of death -’

‘But…’ Sanderson interrupted, wishing McAndrew would get to the point.

‘But I’ve run the Automatic Number Plate Recognition and DI Grace’s bike was in the vicinity of Fawcett’s flat last night.’

‘What do you mean, “in the vicinity”?’

‘Three blocks away.’

‘What time is this?’

‘She heads into the docks area around nine p.m. And leaves via the same route shortly before ten.’

‘Ok, call Grieves on the hour every hour until he gives you a time of death. He won’t like it, but he’ll have to wear it.’

‘Sure thing.’

They were standing in Helen’s office. It was the least suspicious place for a private conference, but even so it felt profoundly odd to be talking about her while standing in her space.

‘Look, Ellie, if you feel uncomfortable doing this,’ Sanderson said quickly, ‘you just have to say -’

‘It’s ok. I’m fine. And you can rely on me to be dis-’

‘I know I can. Why do you think I asked you?’

This earnt a crooked smile from McAndrew, so Sanderson continued:

‘Have we got anything from the phone yet?’

‘Not much but we’re still doing most of the checks. The serial number shows that the phone was stolen five years ago. I’d imagine it’s been used with a bastardized SIM card since. The phone’s history has been deleted, I’m afraid, and the boys aren’t convinced that we’ll be able to retrieve it.’

‘What about prints?’

‘Only partials, unfortunately. It’s been rubbed down pretty well.’

‘Shit.’

‘That said,’ McAndrew added, ‘Amy Fawcett’s phone was still in her bag and the boys have had more luck there. She sent a text message last night to an unregistered mobile number – 07768 038687 – asking someone to meet her at her flat. We’ve looked at the phone contacts of Jake Elder and Max Paine – this is the only number that links all three. We’ve got Elder and Paine’s phone content going back years. The same unregistered user used this number to make appointments with them – just as he or she did with Fawcett.’

Now Sanderson smiled – the first time she’d done so in a while.

‘Ok, let’s run with that. Go back to the phone company – who is it?’

‘Lebara – a pay-as-you-go service.’

‘Go back to them and do a location search. Find out which mobile masts that phone has been pinging over the last few weeks, months. I want to find out where that person has been.’

McAndrew nodded and headed off, leaving Sanderson to contemplate her next move. She had already received several phone calls from Emilia asking for progress, but she would have to wait. They didn’t yet have the smoking gun, but the case was steadily building and, if they were going to bring Helen in, there was something she needed to do first.

‘I’m sorry, I just don’t believe it.’

Charlie tried to keep her voice steady, but there was no hiding the emotion she felt.

‘What you believe isn’t really relevant. We have to be led by the evidence,’ Sanderson countered.

‘DI Grace is a highly decorated officer – she has more commendations to her name than the rest of us put together. Her integrity and professionalism have never been questioned -’

‘That’s not true. She was nearly kicked out of the force for shooting her own sister.’

‘She saved my life that day.’

‘And you’ve been peas in a pod ever since, haven’t you?’

Charlie was about to take Sanderson’s head off, but Gardam intervened, holding up his hand to silence her. He had called Charlie to his office as soon as Sanderson had brought these latest developments to him – Charlie was of equal rank and needed to be included. She was very grateful he had – Sanderson clearly wasn’t going to fight Helen’s corner.

‘This is difficult enough as it is,’ he said calmly. ‘Let’s try to keep personal issues out of it. So what have we got?’

‘We have a personal relationship with all of the victims -’ Sanderson began.

‘According to a journalist,’ Charlie countered.

‘Garanita has a number of photos showing DI Grace visiting Elder’s flat, plus I now have the testimony of a neighbour who saw her there on numerous occasions. Max Paine was brutally attacked nine months ago by a female police officer – a client who’d turned on him. Interestingly, Paine left a voicemail for Emilia Garanita hours before he was killed, saying he had important information relating to Jake Elder’s murder.’

This time Charlie said nothing.

‘We can place Grace’s bike near the scene of the latest murder at exactly the right time. And we believe we can link DI Grace to all the victims via an unregistered mobile phone she attempted to discard on Southampton Common last night.’

‘Come on, Sanderson, that’s speculation and you know it.’

‘We’ll see,’ Sanderson said confidently. ‘We also found a partial boot print near the crime scene at Paine’s flat. It’s a size six – DI Grace is a size six – and the pattern on the bottom is deep, wavy tread, reminiscent of soles you often find on biker boots. As you know, DI Grace -’

‘I get the picture. Can we place Grace at the scene of the first murder?’

‘Not yet.’

‘What about Paine and Fawcett’s flats?’

‘Still processing the evidence, sir,’ Sanderson replied, sounding slightly hesitant for the first time. ‘But the fact remains that DI Grace has been evasive and secretive from the off. She has been behaving erratically and emotionally, making decisions and calls that the evidence just didn’t justify. The use of clingfilm on the third victim can’t be a coincidence, given her history. Perhaps she got bored of waiting for us to work it out.’