Way beyond a lie, p.38
Way Beyond A Lie, page 38
Joe stood up. ‘I’ve got an idea. Let’s lock up here. You go back to your house and I’ll be over in a minute.’
Barry was just putting the coffee cups in the dishwasher when Joe rang the bell and came in. The impersonation he performed of Joan was uncannily accurate by virtue of pointing his nose up at an angle, raising his voice an octave or two, and mimicking a posh Scottish accent reminiscent of Maggie Smith playing the title role in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. ‘Detective Sergeant Melissa Cooper and Detective Constable Andrew Young, based at Queen Charlotte Street, in Leith.’ Joe handed over Mel’s business card. ‘Didn’t take to her at all. Although, the young man was rather dishy.’
Barry couldn’t be certain his neighbour hadn’t made up the last part. He had to wait until he stopped laughing before picking up his phone again.
After stomping out of the house, Alex drove her car a couple of streets away and parked by the blank garden wall of a corner house. It was 21:40, and there was no one about. She tapped the Google app on her phone and searched for a couple of minutes. A smile flitted briefly across her expression before it vanished like cream on a cat’s top lip. She’d found what she was looking for. The search result showed a mobile number. She tapped it and her phone began dialling. When the call was answered, she introduced herself. Then, ‘I’m phoning about Ross McKinlay.’
The conversation didn’t last as long as she thought it might. She closed by saying, ‘Thank you. About ten minutes, tops.’
Alex put her car into gear and drove off. She wasn’t sure how she would feel by the end of the evening but she was about to find out.
Chapter Seventy-Three
Miroslav’s burner phone rang. An obsolete Nokia that could make phone calls and send texts. Danijela had bought hundreds of them, and their now obsolete SIM cards, from a contact in Shanghai a couple of years back. They were perfect for the job.
‘We’ve found the Audi,’ said Danijela. ‘Its last recorded position was this afternoon at 14:20, travelling east in the county of Dorset almost at the border with Hampshire.’
He had no need to ask how the car had been located. In the UK, as in other countries, they had a number of key people in their pockets. Police, lawyers and bankers to name a few. They had control of these officials simply because the individuals were weak, and they had no hesitation in ruthlessly exploiting those weaknesses. The levers could be girls, boys, drugs, cash, power. Miroslav didn’t care, as long as they produced results. Recently, Danijela had set a honey trap, and a senior officer from the Metropolitan Police had been caught, covered in the sticky stuff – both metaphorically and literally. The carefully edited video footage of her with those two men was damning, conclusive and irrefutable. When it was presented to her, along with a sheaf of high resolution stills that portrayed her in a variety of decidedly hardcore situations, in her panic she didn’t notice her eyes were closed or partially closed in all of them. An observer may have mistaken her expressions as lustful or orgasmic. Actually, she’d been drugged until she was practically comatose but left malleable enough to appear a convincing subject. As a result, this highly educated, powerful and extremely attractive woman would do almost anything in order to protect her career and her family. In that order, Miroslav suspected. He wondered briefly if it had been this police officer whom Danijela had leaned on to locate the car. No matter, it had been found.
‘So we were correct. He is trying to find Elisabetta, whom he knows as Carla, and now he is very close. Have we heard from her since you left the message?’
‘No, and I’m failing to understand why not.’ It was cast in stone that all operatives must check for voicemails every day at specific times, and respond to any messages as soon as was practical. ‘I called her not long after three o’clock UK time and, as her scheduled check-in times are 08:00 and 22:00, she should have been in touch by now. I’m not happy.’
‘What does her phone tracker say?’
‘That she has been in or around her home most of the day. Like everyone else, she knows the app is there so circumventing it wouldn’t be difficult.’
‘And the tracer we put on her car?’ Miroslav was referring to devices that had been installed on all their operatives’ cars, this time without their knowledge.
‘Ah well. That one also says her car hasn’t moved all day so unless she has somehow found it, or suspects it is there, she is not driving.’
‘Okay. Perhaps there’s a genuine reason she didn’t call. Let’s see what tomorrow morning’s check-in brings.’ Danijela’s muffled harrumph indicated clearly she wasn’t disposed to being quite so generous.
He changed tack. ‘What about our colleague? Where is he now?’ This was the second call he’d taken from her that evening so he already knew about Jarek’s abortive trip to Edinburgh.
‘Driving south as we speak.’ She carried on speaking as Miroslav threatened to interrupt. ‘I know, I know. But the last flight from Edinburgh to anywhere near London had gone and as we don’t have any contacts in Scotland, we had to hire a car. And after all, our friend is not known in the UK so there is no risk attached.’
‘It will be a very long drive.’
‘True. But he’ll actually reach Hampshire more quickly by road than if he had flown. And of course, the equipment he’s carrying isn’t suitable for air travel.’
Danijela remained silent while Miroslav ruminated. If there were any flaws in her reasoning or planning, he would almost certainly find them. She wouldn’t be annoyed or surprised if he did. They’d spent the majority of their adult lives bouncing off each other.
But this time, he was in complete accord apart from one remaining question. ‘And our Edinburgh colleague, what has she been doing all this time?’
‘Apart from licking her wounds after the bollocking I gave her earlier, she is also trying to confirm where her Scottish friend is at the moment.’
‘Okay, Dani. Thanks. We’ll speak again soon.’
She knew that was more of a command than a passing comment.
At ten minutes to ten, Mel Cooper’s voicemail recorded a message from Barry. But her phone was turned off and lying in a drawer in her bedside cabinet. She was in bed with her husband. Cuddled into his side, her head nestled in the crook of his shoulder and snoring gently. Today was her first day off in twelve. On top of her normal workload, she had been assisting in a drug-running case that had come to fruition that day with the arrests of two men from Edinburgh and three from Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
The kids were away. It was the start of the school holidays tomorrow and they always spent the first week of any break with their grandparents. Mel and her partner, Callum, had been out all day enjoying themselves. A long walk, a couple of cheeky wee cocktails, a Thai meal with wine, and they stopped off for a nightcap on the way home. It was one of those days when all the planets, the stars, the moon and the sun had lined up perfectly.
Barry would have to wait until the morning to tell the police officer just how concerned he was about his friend and neighbour.
Elisabetta Massaro sat cross-legged on the heated floor of her en suite bathroom. The time was fast approaching midnight but sleep was as distant as the back-end of Mars for this enormously troubled woman. Her husband had no such concerns. She could hear his muffled, regular breathing through the bathroom door. She looked down at the phone nestling in the vee created by her slippered feet. It was an old-fashioned Nokia yet it looked like it had hardly been used.
Elisabetta had listened to the voicemail several times using the earpiece she kept hidden along with the phone in her spare toilet bag. Her new husband, Dennis, was a stickler for respecting other people’s privacy and would never dream of looking in there. She thought about listening to it once more but what was the point? She’d picked up the voicemail at ten o’clock that evening when she checked in at her designated time. The recording was timed about seven hours earlier, at 15:06. She should have responded to the call immediately, that was protocol. But because of what she imagined was the real agenda behind Danijela’s apparently innocent message, she hadn’t. And that had been a mistake. Of that, Elisabetta was in no doubt. None whatsoever.
In her heart, she had been waiting for such a call since that day she read the email depicting the unimaginable suffering of Jean-Luc Dornier. She’d considered running but her nerve failed her, and the moment was lost. Her next check-in time was at 08:00 so she could call in then, making up some sort of improbable tale about how or why she hadn’t heard or received the voicemail. But she didn’t believe she would be able to pull it off. Danijela was smart, she’d spot it in an instant. And when that happened, Elisabetta knew she would be living on borrowed time. If she wasn’t already.
So she knelt in front of her bathroom cupboard, lifted out her spare toilet bag, carefully stored the phone and the earpiece in an inside pocket, closed the zip, and the bag, and the cupboard door. Then, quietly and carefully, she crept back into bed beside her still sleeping husband.
And for the next seven hours Elisabetta lay wide awake, wondering how, and when, her end would finally come.
‘Still nothing?’ asked Gail. The time was quarter past one on Monday morning.
Beth didn’t answer. Her face said it all.
After a few seconds Gail repeated a comment they’d both made several times before. ‘It’s really strange we can’t contact either Dad or Ross.’
In the past two hours they’d left numerous voicemails, and sent texts and emails to both their father and his best friend. At first the girls had been curious about why neither man had responded. As time dragged by, curiosity became concern. Then concern upgraded to anxiety. They were just managing to keep panic at bay.
‘There could be lots of reasons, all completely innocent. We’re probably just letting our imaginations run riot.’ Beth looked up at the clock. ‘Anyway, they’ll both be in the land of nod by now. May as well leave it ’til morning and we’ll try again.’
By half past one, both had retired to their respective bedrooms.
By ten to two, Gail was tucked up in bed with her sister.
Chapter Seventy-Four
Monday
It was just before six, and the sky over the Wiltshire city of Salisbury was an hour away from sunrise. Looking at the low, claustrophobic cloud base that was obscuring all forms of celestial light, Jarek Zelenka thought it unlikely he would be breaking out the sunblock any time soon.
He wondered, and not for the first time, why on earth he was driving all over the UK, most of the time in the hours of darkness. No, he should still be catching Caribbean rays. Solar, rather than aquatic. Although his loyalty to Miroslav was absolute, he was definitely pissed that he’d been dragged back from holiday. He didn’t often travel abroad, cultural European city breaks were his preferred destination. So to have his first ever cruise cut short had been annoying, to say the least.
Jarek had been surprised to find the whole cruise experience was enjoyable, not what he expected at all. As the days and the destinations drifted by, he relaxed into it, gradually slowing down to match the ocean-going tempo. He’d seen some amazing islands and wonderful sea life, eaten delicious food, won enough money at blackjack to make him feel like a low-to-medium roller, surprised himself by purchasing a piece of art from the ship’s gallery, and had a one night stand with an American divorcee who’d looked glamorous and sultry with the benefit of the low casino lighting. The sex was enjoyable, not great, but as the night wore on and more of her allure and her clothing was stripped away, he gradually discovered there was hardly a part of her that hadn’t been surgically altered.
Jarek smiled wearily at the memory as he paid for fuel and a reheated all-day-breakfast sandwich at a filling station on the dual carriageway that would take him away from Salisbury to the southeast.
He looked at his watch. Half an hour until I reach Elisabetta Massaro’s house. A couple of hours, tops, to tidy up, and at Heathrow by midday latest. With a bit of luck I’ll be back in Prague tonight.
He was dog-tired and desperate for a good night’s sleep. Preferably in his own bed.
Chapter Seventy-Five
At about the same time Jarek was starting his engine, Martin was gradually surfacing, being dragged towards consciousness by the insistent yet muffled tone of his phone alarm, which sounded like it was buried in a roll of fibreglass insulation. He slapped his hand around on the bedside table but when he couldn’t locate the offending device, he raised himself up on an elbow and peered over the edge of the bed. He lifted the fallen phone, swiped off the alarm and flopped back down, hoping to squeeze another few minutes from what had been an excellent sleep in a rather comfortable bed.
But that prospect vanished like the dreams of a jilted bride immediately he spotted the missed call and voicemail symbols along the top line. He tapped it to reveal the list of callers: a mobile he didn’t recognise followed by Beth, Beth, Beth, Gail, Gail, Beth. He didn’t stop to listen to his voicemails and, seconds later, he had number one daughter on the line, who immediately tore several strips off her old man.
‘I’m sorry, pet. I didn’t mean to worry you. My phone was on vibrate so when you rang, it must have fallen off the table and landed on the carpet. I didn’t hear any of your calls.
‘But I’m okay, honestly. Nothing to worry about. I was just shagged out so I had an early night.
‘No, I’m perfectly fine. Just about to head for the half seven flight home so I’ll see you tonight. We could all go out for a meal. What do you think, eh?
‘Ross didn’t answer either? Probably something similar, Beth. I’m afraid we had a bit of a night out on Saturday. We hit the hot spots of Poole, would you believe.’
Then a pause.
‘You’re kidding! What the hell did she want?
‘She said what?
‘And when did all this happen?
‘Bloody hell, that was late. But no, he hasn’t called me so maybe he doesn’t know anything about it either.
‘Okay. Listen, pet. You hang up now, and I’ll give him a call straight away. In fact, I’ve had another missed call but I didn’t recognise the number. I’ll check my voicemails and see what’s what.
‘Yes, I’ll keep you posted. I love you both.
‘Yes, we’ll speak soon. Bye, Beth.’
A minute later he was calling the other number. ‘Come on, Barry. Answer your piggin’ phone.’
And as soon as he finished speaking to Barry, he called Ross. The call rang out then diverted to voicemail.
Ross was in the shower when Martin called. His phone was already tucked in the outside pocket of his bag. Like his friend, he’d muted it the previous evening. A full night’s sleep had been top of his agenda too. After all, who’d be trying to contact me during the night? Not Martin. He’ll be home already. Lucky git.
Ross didn’t even look at the phone when he woke up so there were several symbols and notifications he didn’t see. Missed calls, voicemail, and most importantly:
Your phone battery is very low on charge. Connect to a power supply immediately.
By half past six he grabbed a bacon butty from the breakfast buffet and walked towards the car park. Next stop: Brockenhurst. Although, the way he was feeling this morning, he could see it far enough.
Four hundred miles to the north, Mel switched her phone on for the day. She was slicing a banana to put on buttered toast when she heard voicemail chirping. Jesus. No rest for the wicked.
There were two messages. From Barry and from Navid Chowdhary, the DC from Cheshire Constabulary she’d spoken to the previous Friday. He’d called less than ten minutes ago. Barry sounded a bit concerned but perhaps not. Voicemail messages rarely sound natural. Mel wondered why he was calling. She would ring him later, once the morning rush had died down.
But then she listened to Navid’s message, and that totally altered her mindset. Over the next fifteen minutes or so, Mel had conversations with Navid, with Barry and finally with Andrew, who promised he would, indeed, get his arse into the station – pronto.
Ross, Ross, Ross. What the fuck are you playing at? And more importantly, who the fuck are you playing against?
Chapter Seventy-Six
Now only a few miles from his destination, Jarek had made good time driving south, especially on the motorways, where he’d set cruise control at seventy-six. The speed limits were of little concern to him but the last thing he needed was to be stopped by a police patrol for driving ridiculously fast. He had taken a break just south of Manchester. Sleep had become imperative as a couple of times he found himself drifting off, the rumble strips at the outside edge of the overtaking lane jolting him back to life. He grabbed two hours sleep in the passenger seat and combined the rest stop with the other necessities: toilet, refreshments and fuel.
Since Bristol, about 100 miles back, he had been driving on A-roads. He’d been pushing it, as witnessed by the occasional double flash of a speed camera in his nearside door mirror. No matter, he wouldn’t be paying any fines.
He passed a sign announcing he had crossed into the New Forest National Park, and drove along an arrow-straight minor road for two or three miles before reaching the village of Lyndhurst. He followed signposts through the village for the A337; the continuation of that road would take him due south to his appointment with Elisabetta Massaro.
