Brian Freemantle - Dead End

‘Who would ever know?’ asked Dingley.

Barry Jackson called Parnell at McLean just before lunch the following day. The lawyer said: ‘Just got a call from the FBI. Might be an idea for you to come along.’

‘So, what have you got?’ demanded Barry Jackson, exasperated, when the FBI lawyer finally stopped talking. They had been, for more than thirty minutes, in Barry Jackson’s office, all the calls held. Neither Jackson nor Parnell had spoken throughout, until now.

‘A conspiracy, of some sort,’ said Ed Pullinger. ‘It’s what sort – to achieve what result – that we don’t know. And don’t at the moment think we can find out.’

‘Are you saying that Johnson, the two police officers, and Edward Grant conspired to kill Rebecca?’ demanded Parnell, as incredulous as his lawyer.

‘No,’ denied Pullinger, at once. ‘I’ve just told you we don’t know

… haven’t got sufficient to prove anything against anyone. But there’s something there to prove… very definitely something that isn’t right.’

‘The fingerprint, on the flight number,’ seized Jackson. ‘Johnson says he’d given it to Rebecca but forgotten about it, some time ago. Forensically it’s possible to distinguish between old and new fingerprints.’

‘We know that. We also know that it’s new, not something given to Rebecca weeks ago…’

‘So, he’s lying!’ broke in Parnell.

‘Yes, he’s lying,’ agreed the FBI attorney. ‘But why? A consignment scheduled on that flight did go missing: Charles de Gaulle airport confirm it and Dulles airport confirm it and Paris customs admit it was their fault.’

‘There was a foul-up over a shipment,’ remembered Parnell, dull-voiced. ‘Rebecca used it as an excuse to call Paris direct, to try to find out what the mystery was.’

‘And it got found,’ said Pullinger. ‘If we had a case to bring – if there’d been a fibre match from the flick knife or if the paint in Johnson’s locker had matched your car – the lie about the flight number being old would be something to introduce. As it is, it’s nothing except another question we can’t answer.’

‘Rebecca never dealt with Johnson, as far as I know. The only shipments he worried about were those addressed to the box number.’

‘As far as you know,’ echoed Pullinger. ‘A lost consignment is the sort of thing a security man would get involved in.’

‘A security man,’ Parnell echoed back. ‘Not the head of security.’

‘Not according to Grant,’ refused Pullinger. ‘He told our guys security is one of the most important divisions in a business like Dubette’s. It would be an easy argument to make, that Johnson was involved without Rebecca’s knowledge.’

‘How’d Johnson get over two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in his account?’ demanded Jackson.

‘He gets eighty thousand a year and says he’s a lucky gambler. He’s quoted us winning horses and Las Vegas visits when we’ve challenged him on substantial cash deposits. The horses did win. And hotel reservations match the dates against the name Harry Johnson. As well as the credit-card charges with his provable signature.’

‘So Johnson never loses?’ said Parnell in desperate cynicism.

‘And it doesn’t look as if he’s going to this time,’ said Pullinger.

‘Grant’s explanation about surveillance is total bullshit,’ decided the other lawyer. ‘What did the detective agency say?’

‘They didn’t know they were being engaged by Dubette. They identified Johnson from a photograph Dingley and Benton showed them…’ Pullinger looked directly at Parnell. ‘Their brief was to watch your apartment and photograph anyone you left or entered with. If anyone entered, they had to time their departure, discover who the person was and where they lived.’

‘Who’d the photographs go to?’

‘They had a cellphone number, listed under a phoney name. They called it and Johnson came immediately to pick up what they had.’

‘You got copies?’ asked Jackson.

Pullinger looked at Parnell again. ‘Yes.’

‘What – who – do they show?’

‘It’s a little…’ started Pullinger, awkwardly.

‘Beverley,’ anticipated Parnell. ‘There would have been some photographs of Beverley.’

‘It’s not a secret, Ed,’ dismissed Jackson. ‘What about others?’

‘There aren’t any others,’ said Pullinger. ‘And surveillance has been pulled off.’

‘They were supposed to be looking for people stalking Richard, not Richard himself. Or who went into his apartment,’ said Jackson. ‘Grant lied, like Johnson lied.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Pullinger, as immediately as before. ‘But about what? Lying to the FBI isn’t a crime in itself. If it was, the entire state of Texas would be concreted over, for one great big federal penitentiary.’

‘I can’t believe this!’ protested Parnell. ‘I can’t believe you can do nothing, about all that’s happened… a murder, for Christ’s sake! Barry only saved me by… by…’

‘A good memory, not a fluke,’ completed the lawyer, unoffended. To Pullinger he said: ‘If you’ve got to accept Johnson’s explanation about the flight number, there’s no cause any more for FBI involvement.’

‘No, not unless there’s any evidence of conspiracy across State borders.’

‘Which you haven’t got,’ said Jackson. ‘Who takes over the murder enquiry? It can’t be Metro DC. I’m suing the two arresting officers. The entire department could come under investigation again, just like in 1996.’

‘I can’t work it out, and I’m glad it’s the Attorney General’s headache, not mine,’ said Pullinger.

‘Wait a minute!’ demanded Parnell. ‘The Bureau, with all its facilities and expertise, are at a dead end, and it could easily be ruled it’s no longer an FBI investigation anyway. The police department who would normally be responsible are disqualified. You can’t guess – and the Attorney General hasn’t decided – who should take over. Is that it?’

‘That’s it,’ accepted Pullinger. ‘But we haven’t been ruled out yet.’

‘You going to disclose the flight-number explanation to the Department of Homeland Security and the Attorney General?’ asked Jackson.

‘We’re mandated to do so,’ said Pullinger. ‘Can you imagine what the Bureau would be hit with if it was announced it was withdrawing from an investigation that’s got as much media attention as this has, in which it had no need to be in the first place? We’d be ankle-deep in blood.’

‘No one’s going to be caught, for Rebecca’s murder, are they?’ said Parnell, weak-voiced in acceptance at what he was being told. ‘No one’s ever going to know why Rebecca was murdered… by whom… they’re going to get away with it. Whoever killed Rebecca and tried to get me convicted of it are going to get away, Scot free.’

‘I said we hadn’t been taken off the enquiry yet. The thinking at the Hoover building at the moment is that it’s better to take the heat we are getting for not making any progress than use Johnson’s flight-number explanation as a way of getting out.’

‘What are you more worried about – concerned with! Justice? Or saving the fucking FBI any more embarrassment?’ exploded Parnell.

‘Both, equally,’ said Pullinger, calmly. ‘If we could get the first, we’d achieve the second. I’ve just tried to explain the difficulties.’

‘We appreciate it,’ thanked the more controlled Jackson.

‘You got any hearing date? Preliminaries, even?’ asked Pullinger.

Jackson didn’t immediately reply, looking steadily at the other lawyer, before saying: ‘We’re getting close to disclosures.’