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  Ford picked up the sheets of paper, flipped through them and said, ‘We’re well over halfway. Just about everyone says ‘No’ and that’s the end of it. A couple have wanted to know what’s going on, that’s all. No one here has asked how we’re doing.’

  ‘OK. Can you keep going with it on your own? It’ll give us a bit of space to look at something else. You’ll be able to tick Phone Interviews in your Young Detective’s I-Spy book after today.’

  ‘In my what, sir?’

  Serena looked equally bemused.

  Waters said, ‘Nothing. It’s just something someone used to say to me. It would help if you can plough on with the interviews, though, Richard.’

  Not a problem, said Ford, and he had the right attitude – he could learn more by keeping his mouth shut and his eyes and ears open in situations like this one. Then Waters said to Serena, ‘I’m assuming if there was a bank card involved, you’d have told me already.’

  ‘Cash. And before you ask, the shop’s CCTV is on a one-week rolling delete.’

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘The CCTV? Up in one corner behind the counter, I expect.’

  ‘No, the shop.’

  She didn’t know but had it online in a matter of seconds. LU1 Mobiles was situated in the largest shopping centre in the middle of Luton. Still in his chair, Waters asked whether the shopping centre had its own car-parking, and the answer was yes, a multi-storey. A Thursday in a big and busy town, not yet six o’clock… The traffic would have been heavy and there wouldn’t have been a toll-free parking space within a mile.

  He said, ‘See if the car-park will hand over their records for that day.’

  For the first time in a few minutes, Serena Butler hesitated, not quite following his line of thought.

  ‘Right… But that’s a data request. And whose number are we looking for? I assume that we are… Whose?’

  Waters shrugged as if he hadn’t thought that far ahead.

  ‘Barry Simms? I don’t suppose anyone thought to make a note of it but you can get it from the DVLA.’

  Their eyes met and held – she had visited and helped to interview Barry Simms, and he, Waters, knew it. She’d felt a little sorry for Simms, but nothing more than that.

  Then Waters added, ‘And, I suppose, anyone who’s lost a mobile recently.’

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  At four o’clock, the air-conditioning broke down. It did so without any fuss, just a quiet click as if a timer had operated but nothing the detectives in the room could do would persuade it to work again. Opening windows made matters worse – the air outside was no cooler, and it was heavy with traffic fumes. But the three of them had had almost an hour without interruption, and progress had been made. Waters was working intently on his own document but monitoring what the other two were doing as well, because sooner rather than later Terek or Wilson would appear and ask for a progress report.

  Serena had been on the phone for several minutes now, mostly waiting. She fanned herself with the edge of a case file, eyes closed as if she were on a beach in Costa del Somewhere Else; then a voice on the line brought her instantly back to Lake Central. She said, ‘Hold on,’ into the mouthpiece and waved to get Waters’ attention.

  She said, ‘The car park office has got that info. They’ll hand it over if they get a formal data request.’

  ‘Ask them what their procedure is.’

  Data protection has become the thing now, and every organisation has interpreted the new laws differently. It can take minutes or weeks, depending on how an organisation’s solicitor has decided to view the latest set of regulations. Waters watched and listened, ready with a variety of persuasive threats and imaginary benefits to anyone at the parking company who was in a position to hand over what they needed.

  Serena said into the phone, ‘Fair enough,’ and then to Waters, with a hand over the mouthpiece, ‘He just wants the name of a senior officer. He’s done this before – he said the senior investigating one if possible.’

  Waters weighed this up. It was an easy enough lie to tell, any old name would do, but in this case…

  He said to Serena and Ford, ‘We don’t know where DI Terek is, do we?’

  Serena said, ‘No,’ without hesitation, but Ford looked pleased that he did and said, ‘I think he’s in his office, sir. He was about ten minutes ago when I-’

  ‘Richard, pay attention. Sergeant Waters just told us that we don’t know where Detective Inspector Terek is.’

  Ford looked at her.

  ‘I thought he was asking a question. DI Ter-’

  Serena patiently interrupted him again.

  ‘You thought he was, but you’re over-thinking things again, Richard. It was one of those rhetorical questions, wasn’t it, sir? The ones that don’t require an answer?’

  Waters nodded, but Ford wasn’t quite beaten.

  He said to Serena, ‘But you answered it. You said “No”.’

  ‘That wasn’t really an answer. It was more me just agreeing that we didn’t know where the DI is.’

  ‘But…’

  Waters said to Serena, ‘Keep your man on the line, I’ll call the SIO.’

  Alison Reeve might still be in her office – she hadn’t looked at all keen to be gone from the job and the building she might not see again for months. He called on the internal line, and it was picked up after only two bleeps.

  ‘Freeman.’

  He said, ‘Oh, sorry ma’am. I thought DCI Reeve was still in the building.’

  ‘She might be, but she isn’t in here. Who is this?’

  He told her and explained why he had called – there was no way back from that, and if this was the new reality, it was best to find out what it was going to be like. She listened without interrupting and then said, ‘A car park in Luton?’

  ‘Ma’am.’

  ‘In the Simms investigation?’

  Yes, he said. This wasn’t going well. Terek might have been the better choice after all. But Cara Freeman made quick decisions, he’d noticed that before.

  ‘Tell the man you’ll call him back in ten minutes. Then come and see me, Chris. In DCI Reeve’s office.’

  As Waters climbed the stairs, he heard someone behind him. It was Terek. They spoke but then both carried on walking until they realised they were making for the same destination. When Waters stopped, Terek said, ‘Why are you here, Chris?’

  Waters explained he had been sent for, and Terek said so had he, just five minutes ago. Something about the situation was annoying the inspector, but the door was already open and there was no opportunity to question his sergeant further. They heard Freeman’s voice telling them both to come in and sit down.

  She was working at the laptop, frowning and squinting a little even though she was wearing spectacles, the first time Waters had seen that. She must be long-sighted. She told them she’d only be a moment, and then she re-read something carefully, one hand hovering over the keyboard. Finally, satisfied, she pressed the Enter key, and he guessed that a message had been sent to someone important.

  Freeman looked up then, removed the spectacles, smiled and said to Waters, ‘Good. I thought it would save time if the three of us were here. Chris, tell me about the new lead in the Simms investigation.’

  He didn’t need to look to his right – he knew Terek’s head would have turned slowly in his direction. What he did need to do, very quickly, was to understand what Freeman was doing here. Was this unintentional, the result of her literally just taking over the case, or had she engineered a potentially awkward confrontation for reasons of her own?

  She had the same smile when she went on, ‘I’m assuming it’s a new lead because there is nothing about it in DCI Reeve’s notes, and they are comprehensive. There is no mention of any plan to trace vehicles in Luton.’

  Terek’s breathing had altered a little.

  This was intentional on Freeman’s part, and Waters knew then that the rules of engagement in the Kings Lake Central Criminal Inves
tigation Department had changed, perhaps for ever, if not for good.

  He said, ‘I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a lead, ma’am. It’s a line of inquiry.’

  Freeman looked at Terek, who said, ‘Sanctioned by who?’

  The look came back to Waters, but before he could speak she said to them both, ‘It looks as if there might have been a breakdown in communication. Those waste more time in the police force than anything else, including expenses’ claims. Chris, I gave you ten minutes – you have eight left. What’s the line of inquiry?’

  Waters kept it short and simple. He said that as it was his team which had worked on the mobile phone records in the investigation, when they discovered this afternoon that there was a new pay-as-you-go device involved, it made sense to try and link it to – he saw the slight change in Freeman’s expression then and put it a little differently – it made sense to see if there were any links to anyone else they had spoken to and who might be involved. As the mobile had been purchased in Luton on the 27th, the same day that Michelle Simms was murdered, it was logical to look at people involved who were from there.

  Terek said, ‘Involved? How? As members of her family? As people who have lost a wife and a sister?’

  Freeman said to Waters, ‘Why the request to obtain the records of a multi-storey car park?’

  Terek twitched, and Waters looked at him directly for the first time since they had entered Freeman’s office. The detective inspector was seething, and it wasn’t difficult to see why – feeling undermined, looking like a man who couldn’t manage his team, embarrassed in front of a new, highly-rated senior officer – but Waters surprised himself with his own lack of sympathy. The fact was that the investigation had been narrowed down too quickly. This was not Terek’s fault but he should have made the point himself.

  ‘Ma’am, we want to see whether the vehicles belonging to her husband or her brother-in-law were in the car park at the time the phone was bought.’

  Terek said, ‘What if they were? People buy new phones. They even use them to call their partners and relatives. If I’d been consulted, ma’am, I would not have allowed this to continue.’

  As far as Waters could tell, the detective chief inspector wasn’t bothered in the slightest by the animosity – she was weighing it up objectively. She tilted her head slightly to the left and raised her eyebrows a little. Then she said to Waters, ‘You could just phone the two men and ask them if they bought the mobile in question, the one that made the last call.’

  ‘Precisely!’

  Freeman’s gaze went to Terek, and if he was going to say more, he changed his mind. Then she looked back at Waters.

  He said, ‘I did consider that, ma’am. But then I thought it would be interesting to see if either of them was in the shopping centre at that time, before asking them if they’d bought a phone. If one of the vehicles was present, but they denied buying a pay-as-you-go, it would be’ – and yes, he still hesitated even now before he used the word – ‘it would be a bit of a coincidence.’

  The surprised eyebrows again but a different look beneath them, a sharper, more appraising look. She swivelled the chair a little in Terek’s direction and said, ‘That’s quite nice.’

  Terek made no comment, and after another short moment of reflection, Freeman said, ‘Is Serena Butler handling it, the car park thing?’

  Waters nodded.

  ‘Alright. Tell her to use my name. I’ll send an email confirmation to her in a few minutes’ time. That’s not an authorisation to use my name for anything else…’

  Waters nodded again and stood up. It was obvious that Terek would want to remain behind with the DCI and say all sorts of things. Terek too must have assumed that’s how it would go but Freeman said, ‘Chris, hang around for a minute, please. Simon, I’ll catch up with you soon.’

  When the detective inspector had left, she asked Waters to close the door to the office that was now, plainly, hers for the foreseeable future. Then her attention was back on the laptop’s screen. She put on her spectacles, read something and took them off again. Years ago, when Smith had first met her, Waters remembered a comment about the whole show being run by sixth formers soon, and she didn’t look much older than that now. Waters thought she might actually be younger than Terek.

  She said, ‘Alright. Give me your take on this investigation.’

  He’d soon have this off by heart – it felt like a re-run of his meeting in Micky Lemon’s a couple of hours ago, followed by the conversation with Alison Reeve. He used some of the same phrases, making the point about the forensics pointing very clearly at someone who was in almost every other respect a bad fit. He said that while Oliver Salmon clearly might have had the opportunity, what could his motive had been?

  Freeman took her time before she answered him.

  ‘A sexually-motivated attack by a completely inexperienced eighteen-year-old. He was aroused, followed her, made some sort of advance. When she pushed him away or whatever took place, he lashed out. She struggled, maybe she attacked him. Have we examined him for any marks?’

  ‘I don’t think so, ma’am.’

  ‘We should have done so. That’s basic stuff.’

  A longer pause while she reflected on that, and Waters began to reflect on a number of other matters.

  Freeman said, ‘Anyway, tell me why we’re wrong. You seem to think we are.’

  ‘There’s no evidence of a sexual motive, other than her clothing being pulled about. Even Dr Robinson pointed that out to me at the scene. He thought it was odd.’

  ‘That’s Dr Robinson the pathologist?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘We haven’t got another Dr Robinson who’s a member of this criminal investigation team?’

  He didn’t answer her this time.

  She went on, ‘So, sticking with the majority view, we explain the disarranged clothing by saying that Oliver Salmon – eighteen, completely inexperienced – couldn’t resist having a look. Because that’s how it starts, isn’t it, for everyone? We get curious and we want to see. And being brutal, because sometimes we have to be, Oliver Salmon has disabilities which mean he’s somewhat behind the curve. OK?’

  There was a new edge in her voice now, but he guessed this was by design. She might be annoyed because he’d brought her problems in her first hour in charge. Equally, she might be testing him to see how he held up, how he held on to his own ideas under pressure. He’d certainly been tested like that before.

  He said, ‘It’s one interpretation, ma’am.’

  ‘But you’re not buying it.’

  ‘Not entirely, no.’

  ‘That’s alright. Is it true that you put the Salmon family in touch with Central’s least favourite duty solicitor?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘Was that deliberate? People are saying that it was.’

  When he didn’t answer, Freeman said, ‘I wasn’t running this when you did that, so I’m not really bothered. If I had been, it might be a different story. But I’d like to know your reason.’

  ‘I’ve met Shirley Salmon, Oliver Salmon’s aunt, a few times before. They’re decent people and I thought they could use some help.’

  Freeman picked up her glasses, as if she intended to get up from her desk, walk around it and take a closer look at him. In the end, she didn’t put them on.

  ‘Which raises a couple of questions. Did you declare a personal interest? Was it your place to assist people under our investigation in that way? And in doing so, did you make it more difficult for your colleagues to carry out the investigation?’

  Waters said, ‘I don’t see it that way, ma’am. Christine Archer is rigorous but she’s been on our list of solicitors for years. Any one of us could have called for a solicitor, and it could have been Ms Archer who turned up.’

  ‘That’s beside the point. You chose to use your position to influence who did turn up.’

  Then she glanced at the laptop again, and said, ‘This is my third SIO…�
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  Waters said, ‘Yes, ma’am,’ and wondered whether she expected him to congratulate her. He concluded the answer was most likely, no. It was probably a sort of warning.

  ‘Do you see much of Smith?’

  A little, he said, alarm bells ringing. Could she possibly know that it was through Smith he had met Shirley Salmon in the first place? If she had asked, he would absolutely not have told her he’d had lunch with him today, but had Freeman driven through the town on her way to Central? Was it conceivable she had caught sight of them? Nevertheless, he knew what she was doing – he recognised the technique, switching direction apparently at random, like Ford running with the ball on a Saturday afternoon, wrong-footing the opposing backs before suddenly making for the line.

  She said, ‘I tried to recruit him twice. If he’d just hung on a few months longer, he would have ended up working for me, in the end. I hate losing.’

  And Waters thought, she’s peculiar. You could say this is verging on the inappropriate.

  ‘Anyway, the reason I mentioned Smith is that in our last conversation on the subject, he said he would not be available but he had two young prospects who were the next best thing. One was Serena Butler, and the other was you. As you know, Serena’s already on my team, as and when. Are you?’

  Answering that too quickly would have been a mistake, but eventually he said, ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘Good. Any other reasons why you’re looking for a perpetrator in Luton?’

  He talked briefly about the missing iPhone and then about Michelle Simms – how she had come across so far as complicated and potentially vulnerable, someone who might well have become involved in difficult relationships. Evidentially, in terms of a case that could be presented in a court room, this was meaningless, and Waters knew it, but Freeman heard him out before she said, ‘Go with it for now. Don’t make any more moves without consulting someone here. Preferably your DI. You’ve really pissed him off.’

  ‘Ma’am.’

  It was impossible to tell whether she was annoyed herself. Her comment about Terek had come across as a statement of fact, nothing more.