Michael Fowler - Cold Death

Michael Robshaw swelled his chest and removed his spectacles from out of his breast pocket. He took out a handkerchief, wiped them and put them on.

“Thanks everyone, the case has moved on with some real momentum today and I think we all know where it is going. I have no doubt in my mind that we are dealing with an ‘honour killing’ here. I’m sure you have drawn the same conclusion. Because of the sensitivity and the repercussions it could have I want a sealed lid on this. No one discusses anything outside this room. Everything we do have from here on we follow it up with the utmost discretion, just on the off chance that we might have got this completely wrong. I want no backlash from this.” He glanced sideways at the panels. There was a list of ‘to dos’ which he had written earlier. He returned his gaze back to the room. “Okay everyone these are the tasks and there are quite a few. The majority are phone calls and will involve diplomacy and patience from you guys. For some of these enquiries you will have to work through the British Embassy in Pakistan and Interpol okay?” He checked the first bullet point he had written. “First on the list we will need to check if she was ever on any flight out of this country into Lahore. We will also have to check with Border Control here and in Pakistan and we need to check the Passport Agency to see if Samia was ever issued with a passport. And now we have Samia’s details I want another check done of local dentists here and in Sheffield to see if we can come up with an identical match to our body. I also want triangulation done of her phone number — see if we can pin-point where her last call was made from. Finally,” he paused and tapped the two e-fit images fastened to the incident panel. “I want a trawl doing of the intelligence system and I want these faxed to surrounding forces. We need to find out who these two are. My guess is that these are the guys that our witness Kerri-Ann Bairstow saw dumping the body off the jetty.” He rested his hands onto his hips and turned to face the detectives. He took in a deep breath. “When we have got all those answers — and only when — we go and pay an official visit to the Hassans.”

* * * * *

Hunter slid out the two sports bags from the boot of his car, slammed it shut and because his hands were full knocked the passenger side back door to with his hip; Jonathan and Daniel had left it open as they had bolted into the house. He heard Beth shouting, “Dirty boots off, now.” and “Jonathan where have I told you to put them?” He smiled.

Typical lads.

He had managed to get away from work shortly after four and he had been glad. It meant he had been able to honour his promise to take the boys to their football coaching session. Besides he enjoyed it, especially the final twenty minutes when the session always ended with a dads’ against lads’ kick-about. It brought back the memories of when he’d played amateur soccer in his twenties for a Sunday pub team many years ago. In fact the last time he had been able to play regularly was two years ago when he had played weekly five-a-side games whilst with Drug Squad.

He pushed through the front door into the hallway to find Beth holding onto the bottom newel post of the spindle staircase bawling up to emptiness, “Put your smelly clothes in the wash basket the pair of you and then get in the shower. I’ll be up in ten minutes to dry you off. And no putting on Sponge-Bob Squarepants until you’ve done that!”

Hunter used the bottom of his heel to close the front door. As he was doing so Beth spun round to catch him. She glared. He held up his son’s sports bags.

“What?” he replied, trying to suppress a grin. “I’ve got my hands full.”

“You’re as bad as they are,” she huffed. “How am I supposed to get them to treat the house with respect if you won’t take any notice?” she rebuked him.

He put on his scolded-boy look and leaned in to plant a kiss on her cheek.

She held him off with her hand on his chest but couldn’t help but break into a smile herself. “You’re stinky as well. Into the shower yourself before you come anywhere near me. Here give me the bags, I’ll sort them out and for your sins you sort out the boys.”

She relieved him of the sports bags and as she turned he slapped his hand affectionately against her firm bottom before sprinting up the stairs.

“You’re not too big to feel the back of my hand yourself Hunter Kerr!” he heard Beth shout from below as he made his way to the boys bedrooms to bundle up their discarded football kits and confine them to the clothes basket.

Fifteen minutes later, clean and refreshed and dressed comfortably in jogging bottoms and T-shirt Hunter stepped into the large dining kitchen; a rear extension of their three bedroom semi.

Beth was at their double cooker removing a dish from the oven. He slid behind her and wrapped his hands around her waist and nuzzled the nape of her neck.

“Smells good.”

“Home-made Lasagne.”

“Hmm, yummy. Fancy a kir?”

“Oh I’d love one Hunter. I’ve had a pig of a day. A man had a heart attack in the waiting room this morning. The doctor and I managed to get his heart beating again, thank goodness, but by the time the ambulance came to take him to hospital we were an hour behind with all our patients. And you can imagine that some of them were in a state themselves after witnessing it. I’ve been in catch-up mode all day.”

“And I think my day’s been tough!”

Going to the wine cupboard he placed a small amount of Frais des bois liquer in two wine glasses and then added the chilled Muscadet from the fridge. He took a sip and savoured the crisp cold fruitiness of the French aperitif. Then he handed a glass to Beth and letting out a deep sigh slunk into a chair around the farmhouse table centre-stage of their kitchen. He smoothed a palm over the hand-hewn oak surface reminiscing for a few seconds about the time when they had bought this. They’d both spotted it in an antique shop in the village of Settle when they’d spent a week in a cottage in the Yorkshire Dales a few years ago. It was an old battered piece of furniture and only three of the chairs matched but they’d instantly fallen in love with it and on the spur of the moment they’d bought it. It had proved to be an ideal gift to one another; it suited the deliberately designed shabby-chic appearance of the rest of the kitchen.

“I’ve left the boys in Jonathan’s room they’re playing on their X-Box,” he said casting his eye back to Beth who was slicing through the crusted topping with one hand and sipping her kir with the other. “I called in at mum and dad’s with the boys on the way back.”

“Oh yes,” she replied not turning around. “What did they have to say?”

“Mum was in on her own. I asked her where Dad was and she said he’d had to go back up to Scotland for a funeral.”

“Oh that’s sad. Anyone we know?”

“She mentioned a name, Archie something, but it didn’t ring any bells.”

Beth stopped what she was doing and spun around. “This is going somewhere isn’t it Hunter?” She raised her glass close to her lips but held it there. “Come on spit it out. I can read you like a book.”

He returned the look she was giving him. “It was just the way she said it. She said it was an old friend of his — she couldn’t remember his full name. I asked a few questions but I could tell she just wanted me to stop and shut up.”

“Well you’ve given your dad a hard time just recently.”

“And rightly so. I saw him arguing with someone, which he denied. Then they were run off the road by some maniac, which I think was linked. And when I push him for some answers he won’t talk to me. I know he’s hiding something but I don’t know what. Now this sudden disappearance back up to Scotland — he’s not been back there for years and years. In fact come to think about it I can’t ever remember him going back up there.”