Jack Slater - No Way Home

‘So, what’s next other than that, boss?’ Ben asked.

‘We need to interview as many taxi drivers as possible, for one thing. Find out if there’ve been any threats, any attempted robberies or other attacks on them and get whatever details we can. I can’t imagine this came out of nowhere. There’s got to be a history there somewhere. Something significant’s behind it.’

‘Or it could be about the other way round,’ Jane said. ‘Taxi drivers attacking customers. Specifically, our victim and those cases we talked about before.’

He nodded. ‘That would go with the use of the pepper spray before the knife. Have you got any more on them?’

‘When? I haven’t had five seconds to spare yet.’

‘Right. That’s your first priority when we get back then. See what you can dig up. We also need to check the PND, the papers, the Internet. Any other sources anyone can think of. And we can’t do any of that from here, so let’s get going.’

‘Aye aye, Cap’n.’ Dave saluted smartly.

‘For that, you can go down to the Express and Echo and check their archives. Then do the same at the Daily News ,’ Pete told him.

‘Oh, cheers.’

Pete gave him a grin. ‘It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it.’

*

As the day drew to a close, Pete wasn’t grinning any more. After two days of hard work on the case, he and his team had got nowhere and frustration was setting in. He recognised it even as it took hold, pulling his mood down and breaking his concentration.

He finished his daily case notes and hit save. ‘Right, that’s it. Time to call it a night. We’ll pick it up fresh in the morning.’

‘Sounds like a plan,’ Dave agreed. ‘Trouble is, where do we go from here?’

‘Well, we’ve got all night to sleep on it. I’m not going to spoonfeed you now.’ And besides, I’m as bloody stumped as you are , he thought, but kept it to himself. Where were they going to go from here?

He’d been to the Devon and Cornwall Police Headquarters at Middlemoor to get a couple of road signs made up, asking for witnesses to come forward. DCI Silverstone was dealing with the press office, as usual. Three sessions of stopping traffic at peak times and questioning the drivers had come up empty, as had visits to the two most likely places for him to have picked up the suspect. Investigation of the victim’s past had drawn a blank apart from unsubstantiated rumours from some years ago that couldn’t be corroborated because the owners of the company he’d been working for at the time were currently out of the country and no official complaints had been made. Jane had come up empty on the other complaint. The complainant had moved and left no forwarding address, though census records had last put her in Bristol, and the alleged victim had been from somewhere in Lancashire, and there was no trace of her either. Singh’s family offered no likely suspects. He seemed, of late, to have a decent reputation. There were no signs of enmity with rivals or colleagues. And as for forensics – there were loads of prints on and in the taxi, but none were identifiable and the same applied to other trace evidence in the vehicle. If they got a suspect, then comparisons could be made, but until then, the lab was no use to them. And there had been nothing in the local papers or on the database that helped either.

It looked like the case was going to come down to possible motives.

It hadn’t been a robbery, unless something less obvious than money was the target. No mention had been made of drug traces being found in the car. He would check on that with forensics, but he could probably discount the idea. Was there anything else he might have been carrying in the car? He picked up the phone.

‘I thought you were packing it in?’ asked Jane.

He looked up and saw that she was standing behind her chair, shrugging into her jacket. He hadn’t even been aware of her getting up. ‘Just thought of something. A quick call and I’ll be on my way. You go on.’

‘OK. Night.’ She picked up her bag and headed for the door, followed by the others as Pete flipped through his notebook and dialled the number he’d noted down.

It was picked up on the second ring. ‘Hello?’

That wasn’t the voice he’d expected. ‘Naz? Is that you?’

‘Yes. Who…’

‘It’s Pete Gayle. Could you ask Mrs Singh a question for me?’

‘Yes, Sarge. What is it?’

‘I need to know if he was carrying anything in the taxi that might have given his killer a motive. Something worth stealing, apart from money.’

‘Hold on, I’ll ask.’

‘How’s she doing now?’

‘Still not very good. Very emotional.’

‘Well, it’s still fresh for her, isn’t it? She must have loved him a lot.’

‘Yeah. And yet, I assumed it had been an arranged marriage.’

Pete laughed. ‘They do sometimes succeed, you know.’

‘Yeah, but… I don’t know. I suppose I’m closer to the idea than you. It’s part of the culture, you know. I’ve had pressure in that direction myself. It’s scary.’

‘I bet it is.’

‘Anyway, I’ll go and ask her.’

Pete heard the clunk of the receiver going down. He waited. After several seconds, the phone was picked up again.

‘Sarge?’

‘Naz.’

‘She says no, there was nothing he’d have been carrying that was worth stealing.’

‘OK, thanks.’

He ended the call, one more possible motive eliminated. Something was nagging at the far corner of his consciousness, but he couldn’t bring it into focus. Long experience had taught him that, in that situation, it was better to give up for a while than try to force it, but frustration fought with reason, pushing him on. His lips pressed together as he fought to grab hold of the idea and pull it out of the fog, but it was no good – it just wouldn’t come.

His hands slapped down on his desk as he stood up. He could do no more of any use here for now. It was time to go home and spend some time with his wife and daughter.

*

Emma had been sitting patiently in the queue created by the roadworks on Pennsylvania Road for a little over ten minutes. Finally, the lights changed ahead of her and she let the handbrake off and moved forward with the traffic flow. The road was coned down to half-width for about a hundred metres, a long trench dug up the middle of the other carriageway, a roll of bright-yellow plastic pipe waiting on the verge to be laid the next day. Accelerating gently up the hill, she was about two thirds of the way through the narrow section when the Nissan’s engine note changed abruptly, faltering and slowing. She pressed her foot to the accelerator, but it made no difference.

‘Oh, for God’s sake, not now!’ She slammed her fists on the steering wheel, dropped the clutch and raced the engine, but still nothing. ‘Buggeration, you horrible, horrible bloody car.’

Letting the clutch re-engage, she sat there at the mercy of fate as the car coasted steadily to a halt. A horn sounded from behind her, then another. Another.

‘Shut up, you idiots,’ she muttered. ‘I’m not stopping from bloody choice, am I?’

The engine cut out completely, an awful silence replacing its comforting hum. She sighed, pulled up the handbrake and unclipped her seatbelt. More horns sounded as she stepped out, turned to face the offending drivers and raised her hands in a gesture that said ‘There’s nothing I can do’.

She heard a handbrake being applied and the door of the car behind hers opened. A man stepped out, tall and good-looking in a dark suit. ‘What’s the problem? Have you run out of petrol or something?’

Anger flared. ‘It’s over half-full, thank you. The engine just cut out.’