Tony Park - Silent Predator

‘Oh yeah?’

‘Yeah. I was in Africa when she was murdered, wasn’t I.’

‘You went for the Greeves thing?’

‘Yeah. What a fucking shambles that was. I’ve got a snout whose given me some good stuff about the bodyguard copper who went over with Greeves.’

Tom swallowed, but hoped he’d hidden his flush of alarm. ‘Such as?’

Fisher laughed. ‘You think I’d tell you? Let’s just say the boys from Hereford aren’t as secretive as they like to make out when they’ve got some dirt to sling at the coppers.’

That bastard Fraser, Tom thought. ‘So who do you reckon killed her?’

Fisher shrugged. ‘Who knows? Probably was some stalker. She was raped, from what I’ve heard. If I was really into conspiracy theories I’d say MI5 or Greeves’s bodyguard killed her to stop her from blabbing about the big man knobbing her, but Greeves’s first bodyguard was tortured and killed by the terrorists, wasn’t he?’

Tom nodded, though he didn’t know how Fisher knew about Nick, as the circumstances of his death hadn’t been publicly released. He started to worry that the reporter knew a lot more than he was letting on.

Fisher leaned forward until his palms were resting on the table, and stared into Tom’s eyes. ‘And his replacement protection officer, Detective Sergeant Tom Furey, currently on suspension pending an appearance at a parliamentary inquiry into the abduction and deaths of Robert Greeves and Bernard Joyce, is sitting in this room opposite me, isn’t he?’

Tom slumped back in his seat. ‘What gave it away? My picture hasn’t been in the press so far.’

Fisher smiled. ‘I paid that freelance photographer in South Africa to follow Greeves. The snapper said this prick of a security guard kept getting in his way. He emailed through the pictures of Greeves — nothing worthwhile — and pointed out the man who ruined the job for him.’

‘Me.’

‘You.’

Tom shrugged. He knew this could go very badly for him, impersonating Carney, but he sensed that the journalist wasn’t about to go running to Scotland Yard just yet. ‘What do you know about Carney?’

‘Nothing.’ Fisher held his hands out, palms up. ‘I’ve never seen or heard of him before, and no one here or anyone else I know has either.’

‘Unusual?’

‘Yes and no. You get a lot of people who wake up one morning and decide that as part of their midlife crisis they want to become journalists. There are plenty of dodgy correspondence schools advertising courses in travel writing and freelance journalism, no shortage of gullible punters who think it’s an easy ticket to fame and fortune.’

‘But he outbid you by offering Precious Tambo what… twenty-five thousand pounds?’

Fisher leaned back again. ‘Yeah. I wish I knew who he was stringing for. Not that any of the other newspapers would tell me. Maybe you could get a court order or something — force them to cough it up?’

‘Not me,’ Tom said.

‘Yeah, not you. What about those other jokers who questioned me — Morris and what’s his name?’

‘Burnett. Maybe. Did you tell them anything about the bidding war?’

Fisher shook his head. ‘None of their business.’

‘This Daniel Carney’s a suspect now. He could have been the last one to see Precious alive. It’s possible he was masquerading as a journalist — he might have found out what you were up to in the club.’

‘Not my job to catch killers, is it?’

Tom disliked Fisher, but he was right. It would be up to the police to find out who Daniel Carney was and who, if anyone, was bankrolling him. ‘Who told you Nick Roberts was dead?’

‘No way. I don’t reveal my sources,’ Fisher replied.

‘Your friends at Hereford?’

Fisher shook his head. ‘You won’t get that out of me. However, you might want to start thinking about what you can tell me that will make you look less like the sacrificial lamb you are most definitely going to be at the inquiry, Thomas.’

‘I found Carney’s card in Nick Roberts’s house, the night after he disappeared.’

Fisher bit his lower lip and refolded his arms. ‘You think this Carney might be one of the terrorists? Think he might have tailed your man Roberts to the club so they could ambush him there?’

Tom didn’t know. He felt as though he was running around in circles at the moment. ‘From what I’ve heard about Precious Tambo, she didn’t sound like the kind to keep company with Islamic jihadists.’

‘She was a stripper. Not many girls are in that line of work because of the job satisfaction. She needed money — and maybe the terrorists had plenty to spare. Also, she had dirt on Greeves, which could have brought his bodyguard into the trap. It wouldn’t have been kosher, but maybe she or the real Carney got in touch with Greeves’s people and the minister sent his henchman to suss her out.’

Tom was thinking along the same lines, but something didn’t add up. ‘Did you ever contact Greeves or his press secretary to put Precious’s allegations to him?’

Fisher shook his head. ‘No way. I was keeping this one close to my chest. Once I had the stripper signed up I was going to go to him at the last minute for comment — late in the afternoon of the day before we went to press.’

Tom shook his head at the tactic. It was gutter journalism — have a two-page spread of lurid allegations ready to go, and give the target no time to formulate a response. The last thing a tabloid such as the World wanted was a rational explanation for Greeves’s relationship with another woman or, worse, concrete evidence that the stripper was lying.

Fisher elaborated. ‘If I’d gone to him with what I had he could have come out with all guns firing, given something to everyone. You know, “Forgive me, people of Britain, I sinned once, but now my wife and family have forgiven me and are behind me.” That sort of crap.’

‘It’s a tough game,’ Tom said.

‘Yeah. You’re about to find that out the hard way. Give me something from the inside on this thing and I’ll go easy on you at the inquiry. I can make you look like a hero if I try hard enough.’

Tom pushed his seat back and stood up. He didn’t want to be in the same room as Fisher for a second longer, and he didn’t believe a word of what the man had just said.

‘I’ll call your superiors, tell them you were here under false pretences.’

Tom looked over his shoulder as he opened the door of the interview room. ‘Go ahead. I don’t think it’s going to make any difference to my future.’

Tom found a cafe near the newpaper’s offices and ordered a tea. He took out his notebook and pen and cell phone. He dialled Dan Morris’s number and the detective groaned when Tom told him who it was.

‘I need a favour,’ Tom said.

‘Well, you’re in no position to ask for one. I’m not going to let you drag me down with you. I’m hanging up now, Tom.’

‘Daniel Carney?’

‘What about him?’

Tom moved his tea away from his notebook and waited in silence.

‘I’m hanging up.’

Tom blew on the hot liquid and sipped it.

‘How do you know about him?’ Morris relented.

Tom smiled to himself. Fisher’s threat to tell his superiors about his unauthorised — illegal — investigation hadn’t fazed him at all. He’d meant what he’d said: nothing he did from here on in would make things worse. He had resigned himself to the fact that he would not survive the inquiry with his career intact. It was liberating, in a way, to be free of the rules and regulations that had for twenty-one years governed his life as a policeman. All that mattered now, all that might, possibly, keep him in the job was if he could find something the others had missed.