Blindside Page 18

  There wasn’t much foot traffic in the mall. It was a standard working day for most people and the city wasn’t exactly built as a holiday destination – not unless you were staying there to use it as a base for the nearby ski resorts.

  He spent an hour in the rental place, most of that time stuck behind a large American woman who insisted on telling the sales agent every detail of her flight down from Chicago and how she was visiting her sister who was ill and how her sister’s no good husband …

  Logan zoned out.

  After a brief attempt by the agent to sell him a convertible, Logan rented a Cadillac sedan with the biggest engine that they had. It sounded to Logan like it would be powerful enough for whatever Cahill had in mind. The agent gave him directions to the rental parking lot, where the cars were stored, and all the paperwork in a branded folder.

  Logan walked the short distance to the lot in the crisp morning air and found the car with the help of one of the attendants who looked about as bored as a person could. He started the car engine and it came to life with a satisfying growl. He spent fifteen minutes getting used to the car’s controls and driving around the lot to acclimatise himself to the automatic gearbox, and also turning left and right from the ‘wrong’ side. When he was happy, he looked in the car’s Sat Nav for a local landmark to give him on-the-road-driving experience and settled for the Denver Broncos’ stadium – Invesco Field at Mile High – because it was a little outside the centre of the city.

  The sky was clear again today and it was a pleasant drive to the stadium. He parked the car and went to the small museum to look around at old photos of the football team and learn about its history.

  When he was back outside, his phone rang.

  ‘You get a car?’ Cahill asked.

  ‘Yeah. A Cadillac.’

  ‘Sounds good. Where are you?’

  ‘Out at the football stadium.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘No reason. Just went for a drive. What about you?’

  ‘Back at the hotel. You coming here now?’

  ‘Sure. You get your errand done?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Probably best if I don’t know what it was.’

  ‘You got it. Listen, I want to go see if we can speak to these people this afternoon.’

  Logan was about to ask what he meant, then remembered it would be to check out the D. Hunter list that Bruce had e-mailed over last night.

  ‘Okay. I’ll head back now. Ten, fifteen minutes.’

  Logan parked on the street near the hotel and bought a local newspaper – The Denver Post – before walking back to meet Cahill.

  ‘You should drive,’ Logan told Cahill. ‘You’re the native after all.’

  ‘Sure.’ Cahill nodded. ‘Think you can handle being my passenger?’

  Logan looked at his friend and, not for the first time, wondered if there was a tiny spark of madness inside his head – the kind of spark that marked men like Cahill out as different from everyone else.

  Men capable of going into battle and coming out the other side.

  4

  ‘We got a hit on the semen sample,’ Murphy told Irvine, perching on the edge of her desk.

  ‘You sure know the way to a woman’s heart.’ She smiled.

  He looked so pleased; Irvine didn’t want to burst his bubble by saying that she knew it would belong to Russell Hall. Let him have his moment.

  ‘Russell Hall,’ he said.

  ‘We know him. His name surfaced already.’

  ‘Is he in custody?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Depends on whether being in the care of the pathologist counts as being in custody.’

  ‘He’s dead?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Killed some time last night or this morning out in the east end. I guess he made someone unhappy when he killed Lewski.’

  Murphy put the DNA result on her desk and left. She felt kind of bad.

  She went back to her notes from the review of the CCTV footage. Looked again at the licence number for Hall’s car. A thought struck her: how does a drug dealer finance a luxury car purchase? Probably not cash. That would arouse suspicion at the car dealership.

  What if he had an outstanding lease or finance contract?

  She accessed the force’s credit reference database and entered the details for the car. The search result told her that there was a loan on it for £10,000 through a little-known finance company. And that the loan was in the name of a company.

  She checked out the company. Its registered office was located at an accountancy firm: Marshall Scott.

  She was still for a beat. Then she called Armstrong and told him the news.

  ‘Can you get over here and we’ll drive up to see them?’ she said.

  ‘What about getting a warrant and doing a proper raid?’

  ‘We don’t have enough evidence for that yet. Let’s see what we can get by dropping in unannounced again.’

  ‘I’m leaving now.’

  ‘Run it all past me again,’ Armstrong said to Irvine as he drove. ‘So I’ve got it clear in my head, you know.’

  ‘Okay. So, Russell Hall used to run Frank Parker’s drug operation.’

  ‘I got that.’

  ‘But he left three months ago to join up with Johnson and now this as yet unidentified new boss. This new boss is probably the real owner of the flat that Lewski and Murray lived in – not the accountants.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Well, it’s all supposition at this point, but Hall was running around in a high-end car which was financed through a company with links to the accountants. Which probably means that they are dirty.’

  ‘You mean that they launder money for the organisation that Hall’s boss runs?’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘And they are committed enough to their client’s cause to even use some of the money to buy flats for prostitutes and put the flats in their own names.’

  ‘That way the money looks even cleaner. I mean, it’s not even connected to Hall or the boss in any way.’

  ‘Right. And if they’re doing stuff as basic as organising finance for cars, it probably means that they have access to all of the financial information for the organisation.’

  ‘Sounds like we can probably break the whole thing open through their records.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  They parked outside the office and saw immediately that the cars they had seen on their previous visit were not there. Irvine looked at Armstrong.

  ‘Think maybe they’re on the run after what happened with Hall?’

  Armstrong shrugged.

  ‘Let’s see what we can find out here first.’

  The receptionist looked nervous when they walked in.

  ‘Remember us?’ Irvine said, showing her warrant card.

  The woman nodded.

  ‘They’re not here,’ she said. ‘Haven’t come back since late yesterday.’

  ‘Is that normal?’

  ‘Not really. I mean, they missed some meetings this morning and they never do that without telling me.’

  ‘You called them?’

  She nodded again. ‘At home, on their mobiles. I sent them e-mails and texts.’

  ‘And you haven’t heard from either of them?’

  ‘No. Is something wrong?’

  Irvine felt sorry for her. She had probably received her last ever salary slip from these guys.

  ‘I think it probably is, yes,’ was what she said. ‘Do you have their home addresses?’

  The woman stared straight ahead. ‘I can’t give you those,’ she said.

  Armstrong placed his hands on her desk and leaned forward. ‘Look …’ He glanced at her name badge. ‘… Mary. It’s very likely that your bosses are mixed up with some bad people and are now getting ready to run. If they are not already running. So the sooner you give us the addresses the easier it will be. I mean, we can find them on our ow
n but that will just waste time.’

  He stood up to his full height.

  ‘You want to be seen to be helping us, don’t you? Who knows who will get dragged into this investigation, you know.’

  The woman caught the insinuation, her face going two shades paler in an instant. She tapped on her computer and a printer under her desk hummed and spat out a sheet of A4. She handed the sheet to Armstrong.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said.

  ‘What should I do now?’ she asked, her eyes filling and her voice wavering.

  ‘I suggest you lock up, go home and start looking for a new job,’ Irvine said. She reached over and put her hand on top of the woman’s. ‘You’ll be fine. But call me if you hear anything.’

  Irvine put a business card in front of her on the desk. The woman looked at it as though she had never seen one before in her life.

  Back in the car, Armstrong asked Irvine what she thought was going on.

  ‘I have a bad feeling,’ she said.

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘I mean, if this guy killed Johnson and Hall, he’ll have no problem taking care of a couple of accountants as well.’

  ‘Especially if these guys have the keys to his money.’

  ‘You want to call and get some uniforms over to the houses?’

  Armstrong waved the sheet of paper that the receptionist had given to them.

  ‘No, they’re not far,’ he said. ‘Both in the west end.’

  ‘We can be there in less than half an hour. You ready for what we might find?’

  ‘Not really. But what’s that got to do with anything?’

  5

  Marshall’s car with the vanity plate was sitting in the driveway of his modern home. It looked as though he had bought an older house and demolished it to build something in glass and steel. Something very expensive.

  ‘I don’t care how well you’re doing as an accountant,’ Irvine said. ‘There’s no way that a two-partner firm operating out of that office makes enough to allow him to buy something like this.’

  ‘You’re right.’

  ‘We should have checked them out more thoroughly.’

  She looked at Armstrong and felt the skin on her face stretched tight across her bones.

  ‘They brought it on themselves,’ Armstrong told her, opening his door and stepping out on to the pavement.

  Armstrong walked ahead of Irvine up the driveway, stopping to cup his hands on the driver’s window of the car and looking inside.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said, turning to Irvine as she came up behind him.

  She walked past him to the front door of the house. It was a heavy, oak door – double the size of a standard door. There were glass panels on either side and Irvine looked through one of them into a wide entrance hall. There was nothing immediately out of place that she could see.

  ‘Looks normal,’ she told Armstrong.

  A metal intercom panel was installed on the wall to the side of the door. It looked to Irvine as though it was a video camera device to allow the occupiers to see who was at the door. She pressed a button on the panel and heard a chime inside.

  Waited.

  Pressed the button again.

  Waited.

  ‘No one’s going to answer,’ she said to Armstrong.

  He grabbed the door handle and pulled it down. The door clicked and Armstrong pushed it open. He looked at Irvine. Unsaid between them: not a good sign that the door was unlocked.

  They stood together looking inside the house and listening for any sound. It was silent.

  ‘Does he have a family?’ Irvine asked.

  ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘It’s too quiet.’

  ‘Do you want to call for support?’

  ‘Armed response?’

  He nodded.

  Irvine looked inside the house. It felt empty. Or, at least, devoid of life. Whatever that would turn out to mean.

  ‘No. I don’t think we need to worry about anyone who might be in there.’

  He got her meaning. Irvine walked inside.

  There was an open staircase at the back of the hall leading up to a first-floor balcony with a glass guard along it. They went through each of the rooms on the ground floor and found nothing until they got to the kitchen at the rear of the house.

  It was a high-end installation in black and grey with a central island and the best in appliances that money could buy. Marble-tiled steps led down to a dining area that had a glass roof.

  Irvine walked around the island and stopped. She motioned for Armstrong to join her and pointed at the floor.

  There was a dark smear of blood on the floor and a splash of it on one of the lower cabinet doors.

  ‘Looks like it was contained here,’ he said. ‘I mean, there’s no blood trail anywhere else down here.’

  Irvine walked closer and saw that a drawer at the end of the island had been left open. There was a collection of towels in the drawer.

  ‘Probably took a towel from here,’ she said, pointing at the open drawer. ‘And applied it to the wound.’

  Armstrong nodded.

  ‘Either he took him upstairs or outside.’

  ‘Let’s go upstairs.’

  There was a trail of blood on the wooden floor of the first-floor balcony leading to a room at the far end of a long hallway. They walked carefully along the hall to avoid stepping in the blood and contaminating the scene.

  The door at the end was closed. Irvine felt her heart thudding and blood rushing in her head. She reached out and opened the door.

  It turned out that Marshall did have a family.

  A woman was on the floor inside the door and her body prevented Irvine from pushing the door all the way open. Her face was discoloured from the beating she had suffered and her throat had been cut so deeply that her head was almost severed.

  The room smelled of blood and evacuated bowels and Irvine put a hand to her nose when the stench hit her.

  Marshall’s body was on the bed. She noticed straight away the mess of his right hand: two fingers were missing and the remaining ones were horribly disfigured. There was a pillow over his face. Or what was left of the pillow: shredded and soiled by blood from so many thrusts of a knife.

  Irvine walked around the foot of the bed and found Marshall’s son lying on the floor on the far side of the bed. Armstong stood in the doorway staring at Marshall.

  The boy was in his early teens, from what Irvine could tell from his clothes. It was impossible to know based on the mess where his face used to be.

  Something burbled in Irvine’s stomach.

  Hold it in, Becky.

  She turned from the boy’s body and looked at Armstrong.

  ‘There’s another one here. He’s just a boy.’

  ‘He tortured them.’ Armstrong continued to stare at Marshall. ‘Why?’

  ‘Looks to me like he did it because he enjoys it. Which makes him extremely dangerous.’

  6

  DS Ewen Cameron called Irvine from the other accountant’s house an hour later. She was standing in Marshall’s driveway as the Scenes of Crime team pulled up to the house in a van. Cameron was a fifteen-year street veteran and still his voice wavered.

  ‘They’re dead,’ he said.

  ‘How many?’

  Please, no more kids.

  ‘Two. Husband and wife.’

  ‘Were they tortured?’

  He made a sound. Irvine wasn’t sure what it was supposed to have been.

  ‘Yeah, you could say that,’ he managed to say eventually.

  ‘Did they have any children?’

  ‘Looks like it from the photos in the house. A daughter. We’re still trying to track her down.’

  ‘But she’s not in the house?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good.’

  Armstrong came out of the house and stood beside her.

  ‘They found Scott and his wife,’ she told him. ‘Same story over at that house.’

  ‘Shit.’
<
br />   ‘Yeah. But doesn’t sound like their kid got caught up in it. At least, not yet.’

  Armstrong shifted from foot to foot. Irvine looked at him. It was clear he wanted to say something.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  He stopped shuffling and met her eyes.

  ‘This is what the Frank Parkers of the world do, you know.’

  ‘Kenny, I’m not some bimbo straight out of school. I mean, I spent my time on patrol and I earned the right to the job I have now. I know what these people are like.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘I do. I’ve seen …’ She turned away from him as the first of the forensics team walked past her to enter the house. ‘I’ve seen enough,’ she went on. ‘To know what people are capable of.’

  ‘And you still treated him like he was worthy of respect.’

  She turned to face him, angry now.

  ‘That’s bullshit, Kenny, and you know it. I was doing my job. Following a line of inquiry and trying not to let my personal feelings get in the way of that.’

  He started shuffling again. Didn’t look at her.

  ‘I’ll quite happily snap the cuffs on him if the time comes for it. But right now he might be able to help us find out who did this. Because we’re no closer now than when we started.’

  ‘He’s poison,’ he said, looking at her now.

  She decided to ask him straight out. It felt like he wanted to tell her anyway. ‘What is it with you and him?’

  Armstrong watched as more forensics drew up at the kerb.

  ‘I had a good mate who was undercover. Maybe three years ago now. Anyway, Parker found out and stitched him up. Made him look like a dirty cop and he went inside for eighteen months. Lost his job, his pension and his wife.’ Armstrong looked down the street, seeing something much further than the house at the end of the road. ‘He killed himself when he came out. First day, in fact.’

  ‘How do you know it was Parker?’

  Armstrong gave her a look.

  ‘I’d take him over a thousand Frank Parkers.’

  He left her and went back into the house.

  The day dragged long. Time stretched out interminably. Irvine left Armstrong on scene at around five-thirty, he not saying very much to her now after the argument about Parker. She could do without his mood.