Tony Park - Silent Predator

‘Tom? Answer me?’

‘Carney’s card was under Nick’s fridge — probably slipped off the door.’

‘Oh, right,’ Morris said.

Tom could almost hear the squeaky wheels turning in his colleague’s mind.

‘Well, you’re wasting your time there. I don’t think he exists,’ Morris said.

‘Really?’ Tom had already come to the same conclusion. It was hard to believe a freelancer who could command a budget of twenty-five thousand pounds from a newspaper would be unknown to other reporters in the industry. Also, the instant cards giving nothing but a cell number were a flimsy prop. Tom suspected the number was probably from a pre-paid SIM card.

‘The phone number was a pre-paid,’ Morris said. The confirmation brought no solace to Tom.

‘There are a load of Daniel Carneys in the phone book and we’ve just about got to the end of them, but nothing so far.’

‘Precious Tambo was raped, wasn’t she?’

‘Who told you that? I’m really going to hang up now, Tom. All the details of her death are being kept quiet.’

‘A reporter.’

Morris groaned again. ‘Bleeding hell. Goodbye, Tom.’

The phone went dead in his ear and Tom sipped some more of his tea.

Names. That was all he had. One didn’t exist, and the others, Nick Roberts, Precious Tambo and Robert Greeves — the ones who could give him the answers he needed — were all dead.

On the table was a copy of the Sun, which the last customer had spilled a latte on. Tom flipped through it as he thought about his next move. On page five he saw a headline that galvanised him into action.

SLAIN MINISTER’S FRIENDS TELL OF JANET’S GRIEF. GREEVES’S WIDOW PLANS TO SET UP CHARITY IN ROBERT’S HONOUR.

In his wallet was a laminated card with the phone numbers for Robert Greeves, his key staff members, and Greeves’s wife, Janet. There were numbers for the family homes in London, and in Bledlow Ridge, a village near West Wycombe in Buckinghamshire. The newspaper story said Janet Greeves was at the family’s ‘secluded, upmarket rural retreat’. Tom thought she would have the answering machine on for the land-line but would have her cell phone turned on.

‘Hello?’ said the female voice.

‘Mrs Greeves?’

‘Who’s calling, please.’

Tom thought she was right to be cautious. She would have been hounded by hundreds of reporters so far.

‘Detective Sergeant Tom Furey, ma’am. I was with Mr Greeves, when

…’

‘Oh.’

‘I’m very sorry for your loss, ma’am.’

‘I’ve read about you in the papers, Sergeant, though not by name. Is this an official call?’

She was frosty, dismissive. It was to be expected.

‘If you’ve seen the press reports, then you’ll know I’ve been suspended.’

‘Well, if you’re calling to apologise, it’s really not necessary. I’m sure you did everything you could have done.’

He’d expected more emotion. Perhaps anger, or if she was forgiving, empathy or pity for him at failing in the line of duty.

‘I’m sorry about the way things turned out, but I also have some questions for you which might help the investigation into your husband’s abduction and death.’

‘Yes, but you’re suspended, as you’ve just pointed out. I’ve told the investigating officers about Robert’s movements on the last few days before he left for Africa. There was nothing unusual. I understand if you’re trying to clear your name, but — ’

‘It’s not that. There are some sensitive matters that have come up, which I wanted to talk to you about in private. Perhaps it’s better if they’re not made part of the official record of investigation being undertaken by detectives Morris and Burnett.’

There was a pause on the end of the line.

‘I really should be going. I’m late for an appointment. Perhaps if you give me your number, I could — ’

‘It’s about the affair.’

Silence.

Tom waited. It always worked.

‘I meant what I said about being late. I’m going to be with my children this afternoon and this evening. I can see you at eleven, tomorrow, at the Bledlow Ridge house.’

Tom was wired. He felt truly alive for the first time since Bernard’s death. He’d pushed a button and Janet Greeves had responded. She knew about her husband’s infidelity — perhaps there had been more than one affair.

He hated having to wait until the next morning to see her.

Ideally, he would have played his trump card face to face. Now she’d have time to prepare herself for his questions, but he couldn’t do anything about that. He finished his tea, walked to the DLR station and made his way back to Highgate.

Once inside, in the warmth of his home, he went to the study at the top of the stairs and turned on his computer. He typed Robert Greeves and Africa in the internet search engine’s subject field. There were scores of hits, so he tried again, limiting it to news coverage and added Michael Fisher to the search words. This limited the hits to less than a page.

He clicked on Fisher’s last story for the World before Greeves’s ill-fated trip to meet with the South African defence minister. This was a critical piece about the ‘globe-trotting junior minister’s love affair with the dark continent and taxpayers’ money’. It showed a full-length photo of Greeves, manipulated so that he was wearing a pith helmet and Bombay bloomers, with a pair of oversize binoculars around his neck and a gin and tonic in one hand. The story listed the minister’s trips to Africa over the past three years.

As well as South Africa, the countries he had visited included Kenya, Tanzania, Namibia, Mozambique, Botswana and Malawi. The last, Tom noted, Greeves was also reported to have visited four times on holiday, as well as the two ‘official’ visits listed in the chronology.

With its crystal-clear waters and colourful tropical fish, fresh-water Lake Malawi has proved far more attractive than Bognor Regis for Greeves during the past three parliamentary recesses, Fisher had written.

Tom made a note of the country on his pad and spent twenty minutes looking for information about it on the internet. He found a map and saw that the landlocked country was east of Zambia and northwest of Mozambique. It seemed to be largely made up of the lake which Fisher had referred to in the story.

He decided that when he picked Sannie up in the morning he’d ask her what she knew about Malawi.

The pilot’s British-accented voice came over the intercom, interrupting the movie that Sannie was watching without really paying attention to while she ate a breakfast of scrambled eggs, pork sausage and chips.

‘Ladies and gentleman, just an update on our arrival. We’ve made up time and expect to have you on the ground at five-fifteen this morning and arrive at the gate on schedule at five-twenty. The weather in London is quite warm — it’s fifteen degrees at the moment…’

Sannie washed some greasy sausage down with her orange juice. There wasn’t a trace of irony in the man’s voice. Fifteen degrees? Warm? That was less than half the temperature in Johannesburg when she’d left.

She checked her makeup in a hand mirror as they taxied, reapplying a little lip gloss. There was nothing she could do about the bags under her eyes. Even though the British government had paid for her to fly business class she had found it hard to sleep.

Outside it was still pitch black. In Africa the sun was rising at four-thirty by this time of year and it would be quite hot by now.

Sannie peered out the window and put the back of her hand against the Perspex; it felt cold. She shivered, wondering not for the first time if the clothes she’d brought with her would be warm enough. She was wearing jeans and high-heel boots for the trip, with a short-sleeve T-shirt over a long-sleeve one, and a cropped black leather jacket. It was very casual, but she planned to change into her black business suit as soon as she arrived at her hotel. Her first meeting, with Chief Inspector Shuttleworth, wasn’t until two in the afternoon. She’d probably have time to sleep a bit beforehand.