On Cold Ground (Detective Karen Hart) Page 20

  Perhaps Eagle was scared of him.

  Sparrow liked that idea. Eagle needed to understand that he wouldn’t be controlled anymore. The threats against his family had been evil. Enough to cut himself off to protect them. Now, he had no one.

  Fear for his family had kept Sparrow in line for a long time. The fear that his loved ones would be targeted had compelled him to follow orders without question.

  But now the tables had turned, because Sparrow wasn’t just doing the jobs asked of him. He might not enjoy his tasks, but he had discovered an unexpected talent for manipulation.

  On the way to the briefing, Karen asked Leo to put a note about drinks that afternoon in the diary. She didn’t want to be told off by Churchill for being missing in action and no one knowing where she was.

  ‘No problem,’ Leo said. ‘How are you doing after . . . last night?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Karen said. ‘Sophie said you’d found something on the CCTV.’

  ‘Yes,’ Leo said, opening the door to meeting room three and letting Karen walk ahead of him. ‘I’m not sure whether it’s our man, but it’s the closest we’ve come so far.’

  ‘That’s excellent news. You’ve got an ID?’

  ‘Yes. Brandon Ashworth, thirty-seven, married with two kids, from Wragby. He’s not got a record, but he’s shifty, hiding something. And as whoever killed Laurel Monroe had to come in and out of that building, and we’ve eliminated the other two people on the footage as suspects, it’s got to be Ashworth.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Arnie said as he walked into the room. ‘The trouble is there’s also a fire door at the back that isn’t alarmed and isn’t covered by CCTV.’

  Karen’s hopes fell. ‘So that means The Cleanser could have come in that way, and they wouldn’t have been caught on camera.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Arnie pulled out a chair, plonked himself down, then loosened his tie.

  ‘And the suspect you found on CCTV, Leo, does he know anyone in the apartment building? Did he give you a reason for being there?’

  ‘Denied it was him. Denied everything. Very suspicious.’ Leo sat beside Arnie. ‘I’ve only spoken to him on the phone so far, but we’ll bring him in after the briefing.’

  Churchill walked in the room, looking jubilant. ‘Great work, both of you,’ he said, nodding to Leo and Arnie. ‘Why don’t you kick us off, Leo, and tell us about the suspect you’ve identified?’

  Leo played the video footage on his tablet and gave them what he knew so far. ‘Look, you can see him coming in the door here, but it’s not a great picture of his face on the way in. But on the way out, he looks straight up at the camera. See.’ He paused the video just at the point where a man in his late thirties to early forties with short brown hair and a receding hairline looked up at the camera. ‘His name is Brandon Ashworth. He’s an administrator at the university, thirty-seven years old.’

  ‘Religious?’ Karen asked, after Leo had finished giving the background he’d gathered on Ashworth.

  ‘He’s listed as Church of England, but I don’t know whether he’s a practising Christian. We don’t know much about him at all, other than the basic facts. We were planning to go and pick him up after the briefing, sir,’ Leo said, looking across at Churchill.

  ‘Absolutely.’ Churchill was clearly thrilled to be making some progress.

  Karen felt she should be too, but she wasn’t getting the streamers out just yet. There could be other reasons for Ashworth to have been in the apartment block.

  ‘I’d be happy to go with you, Leo,’ Karen offered, but Churchill shook his head.

  ‘No, I think Arnie and Leo should go. After all, this is their result. Before you head off to collect him, let’s just go over the letters one last time. We think that the claim about Laurel Monroe earning money running a sex-cam website was a lie, but she had a history of drug abuse. Correct?’ All the officers in the room nodded, and Churchill went on. ‘We believe that the claims against Lloyd Nelson regarding domestic violence and embezzlement were both false.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Arnie said.

  ‘And the final letter accusing DCI Shaw of corruption was a lie,’ Karen interjected.

  ‘And the alcohol problem?’ Churchill raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Another lie,’ Karen said.

  Churchill steepled his fingers beneath his chin. ‘I have a report that states numerous bottles of alcohol, both full and empty, were discovered in and around the bungalow.’

  ‘What do you mean in and around the bungalow?’ Karen asked impatiently, leaning forward. She was growing defensive. She took a breath and waited for Churchill to answer.

  ‘I mean there were lots of bottles in the house, and in the recycling bin, which suggests the contents were drunk recently.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean he was an alcoholic. I’ve known him for a long time, and yes, he liked to drink, but he didn’t have a problem.’

  ‘If you’re too close to this to be objective . . .’ DCI Churchill began, and then trailed off.

  Karen put her hands up. ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Right. Well, we can speak to his doctor, I suppose, and we’ll find out what state his liver was in after the post-mortem.’

  Karen tensed and stared down at her notes. She hated the way Churchill was talking about DCI Shaw. She remembered her old boss as kind and supportive, quick to smile or, when deep in thought, frowning so deeply his bushy eyebrows met in the middle. Now he was just a dead body in the morgue waiting to be dissected.

  She listened to Churchill discuss the plans for questioning Brandon Ashworth, and hoped this was the breakthrough they were all hoping for.

  Then Arnie and Leo went to collect Ashworth to bring him back to the station for questioning, and Karen called Anthony’s sister to offer her condolences.

  The call was answered by Anthony’s niece, who said her mother was too upset to come to the phone. Karen offered to help if there was anything the family needed, and told her to call anytime if the family had questions.

  Using the computer, Karen downloaded her contacts stored on the cloud, but then groaned when she discovered Morgan’s old phone had no way of uploading contacts in bulk. She’d have to add them manually, one at a time.

  There was no time for that, so she just put in the most important numbers, then sent a text to her parents and sister just to make sure they were okay. Anthony’s death had unnerved her. She worried that her family could be at risk too.

  She made a strong black coffee, then sat at her desk and ploughed her way through the case files, trying to make sense of all the data they’d collected. There was a lot of it. The statements and background research felt overwhelming. The link between the victims could be hiding in the information they already had.

  It all swirled around in her mind. There had to be a connection somewhere. Three random killings were so unlikely.

  Karen flipped through the paperwork and stopped when she came to a printout of Anthony’s call log. They’d managed to get hold of that fast. Leo and Arnie must have worked late last night. She scanned the numbers and saw her own at the bottom. Hers was the last number Anthony had called. She bit her lower lip. The number above her own looked familiar, though she couldn’t place it. After logging onto the cloud and accessing her contacts again, she searched for the number.

  She got a hit.

  Alice Price.

  Karen stared at the screen, thinking. Alice? Why had Anthony called Alice Price? They’d worked together in the past. But Anthony hadn’t mentioned talking to Alice regularly, and Alice’s husband didn’t like her being in contact with her old colleagues. Had Anthony told Alice what he wanted to tell Karen?

  She reached for her phone, then stopped. Protocol demanded she tell Churchill. If the investigation were headed up by Morgan, she’d go to him, but she didn’t trust Churchill. What if he was involved? Alice had told Karen to look into Churchill once, after all.

  Why Anthony? Had he been killed to stop him telling Karen something important
? Perhaps it was an inside job, someone on the force who didn’t want him revealing what he knew, so they’d decided to kill him and then cover up his death by making it look like he was the victim of the serial killer . . .

  Her imagination had gone too far. She couldn’t seriously think the corruption would go that deep.

  A little voice whispered, But they tried to run your car off the road . . . and killed Josh and Tilly.

  Karen glanced up and looked around the open-plan office at her colleagues. It all seemed so normal, so ordinary. People were sipping coffee, staring at their computer screens, tapping on keyboards or chatting away on the phone. Could one of these people have targeted Anthony?

  But surely if they wanted Anthony gone, there were easier ways to do it. An accident, mow him down in a hit-and-run or . . .

  Karen paused. The hit-and-run. Sam Pickett. Karen rubbed her hands over her face. She couldn’t be emotional about this. She needed to think logically. That’s what Anthony would tell her to do.

  Think it through. Weigh up all the possibilities. Look at the case from every angle, and then you’ll find what you’re missing.

  She remembered Anthony’s oft-repeated advice and swallowed the lump in her throat.

  Stomach rumbling, she checked her watch and was surprised to find that it was almost eleven. She hadn’t eaten breakfast. Mike was right – if she wanted to work this case, then she needed to eat properly and sleep well to perform at her best.

  She pushed up from her desk and headed out of the office, intending to go to the canteen. Halfway along the corridor, she slowed at the sound of raised voices and turned. The door to meeting room three was ajar, and Karen stood aside quickly as it was shoved wide open.

  A tall man, broad-shouldered with a head of tousled brown hair, stalked out of the room, his whole body rigid with anger. ‘You’ve got nothing. How is that possible in this day and age? We’ve got cameras everywhere, and still you don’t have anything to go on. No witnesses. Nothing! My son got knocked off his bike, and no one saw a thing.’

  DI Morgan stepped out of the room behind him and said, ‘I wish I had more news for you, but—’

  The man shrugged him off.

  Karen knew it was Sam Pickett’s father.

  ‘Has it just been you investigating the accident? One officer looking into my son’s death?’

  ‘It’s not only me. We’ve got people from the traffic division looking into the accident, and we’ve got officers going over all the cameras we have on roads leading to Waddington, but as you know there are no cameras on Hill Top itself, which means we have to go back to the larger roads and—’

  ‘That doesn’t help me, does it?’ The man’s voice was quieter. His fury had gone and was replaced by hopelessness.

  ‘I really am sorry, Will,’ Morgan said, but Sam’s father just turned away and walked towards the exit with a uniformed officer.

  Karen caught Morgan’s eye. ‘Difficult one?’

  ‘Yeah, he’s suffering. They both are, but I’ve got nothing else to go on. It’s come down to us going through all the traffic camera footage, looking at every single vehicle heading in that general direction. I’m not sure we’re going to get what we need, even if we do that.’

  Morgan was upset. He was normally so stoic, calm and quiet, and although he wasn’t raising his voice and ranting about the injustice of a twelve-year-old kid being hit by a car and then left for dead at the side of the road, she could tell he was finding this investigation incredibly hard.

  ‘It’s tough,’ she said. ‘The ones with the kids always are. Do you think there’s a chance whoever knocked Sam off his bike thought they’d hit an animal?’

  Morgan shrugged. ‘He was cycling along Hill Top. It was dark, and the street lighting is poor. From the tire marks on the road, it looks like they were driving too fast, but we haven’t had any witness statements from the houses nearby to suggest a car went roaring past. Though plenty of people complained that commuters use it as a cut-through.’ Morgan sighed. ‘Enough about my case. How are you holding up?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m okay,’ Karen said. ‘Look, I didn’t mean for you to go home alone last night. I was supposed to be staying with you and monitoring the cameras. With everything that happened . . .’ She shrugged. ‘I forgot. I’m sorry.’

  ‘No need to be sorry. You had a lot on your plate.’

  ‘You should have asked Rick to stay.’

  ‘He offered, but things are difficult for him at home with his mum.’

  ‘Sophie then?’

  Morgan mock-grimaced. ‘I think I’d have preferred to come face-to-face with the killer than listen to Sophie explain the ins and outs of FBI protocol all evening.’

  ‘You’re not taking it seriously. Sophie’s a good officer. She’s interested in the academic side of crime. There’s nothing wrong with that.’

  ‘I know. She’s a great asset, and I’m glad she’s part of my team. But I like my own space.’

  ‘You can have as much space as you like once The Cleanser is caught, but until then you’d better get used to company.’

  Morgan put his hands up in defeat. ‘All right.’

  ‘Please be careful, Morgan. After Anthony . . .’ Karen shook her head. ‘If anything happened to you . . .’ She looked away and swallowed the lump in her throat.

  ‘I don’t think The Cleanser is interested in me anymore.’ Morgan squeezed her hand. ‘I played my part.’

  Karen shivered. She hoped he was right, but this killer enjoyed playing games. No one was safe until they’d been caught.

  ‘I wanted to say thanks for calling Mike as well, and for getting me out of there before Churchill arrived. It was the right call.’

  ‘Of course it was. I always make the right call.’

  Karen managed a smile. ‘I don’t know about that. But I know you weren’t working on the case, so you didn’t have to show up like you did.’

  Morgan’s expression grew serious. ‘Of course I did. I’m on your side, Karen. You know that.’

  She met his gaze, then looked away. ‘We’ve got a new suspect.’

  ‘You have?’ Morgan said, raising his eyebrows. ‘Well, that’s good news. Who?’

  ‘A man called Brandon Ashworth. No record. He was caught on camera leaving Laurel Monroe’s apartment building around the time we think she was killed.’

  ‘Well, that’s promising.’

  ‘Yes, it is. Leo and Arnie are bringing him in. Don’t you recognise the name? I wondered if he was someone you’d dealt with in the past. The Cleanser named you in the first note.’

  ‘It doesn’t ring any bells. Sorry,’ Morgan said. ‘Let me know how you get on.’

  ‘Will do.’

  Karen had every intention of getting something healthy for breakfast in the canteen, but ended up selecting an apple pastry and a cup of strong English Breakfast tea. She sat at one of the tables and polished off the sticky danish in about thirty seconds.

  She sipped her tea, thinking about the case in the noisy surroundings. She allowed herself to go back over the possibility Anthony’s murder was somehow tied into the corruption. Could it be a coincidence that he’d needed to tell her something and then that very night he was murdered?

  Karen decided she needed to visit Alice Price, but she wouldn’t go alone because that would open her up to criticism from Churchill. Alice’s husband already had an axe to grind. He thought Karen had been hounding his wife, so she needed to do this by the book, and to do that she needed a partner.

  She didn’t dislike Arnie and Leo, and they seemed competent enough, but she needed someone she could trust. That was where Sophie came in. Karen stood up, put her plate on the tray rack and set off to find Sophie. They needed answers, and though Alice wasn’t the most reliable witness, she might also be the only person to know what Anthony had been planning to tell Karen last night.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Karen was making a coffee when Arnie and Leo came back with Brandon Ashw
orth. Leo was beaming. Even Arnie was more enthusiastic, and they were both talking as though they’d cracked the case.

  Karen hoped they had, but she wasn’t convinced.

  They’d left Ashworth in the interview room, giving him time to talk to the duty solicitor.

  ‘Leo, what else did you uncover on this guy?’ Karen asked, wondering what was behind their buoyant mood.

  ‘I’ll email you the file on him,’ Leo said with a grin.

  ‘I’d appreciate it.’

  ‘He still denies he was there. I can’t wait to show him the CCTV footage during the formal interview.’

  Churchill strode into the open-plan office, clapped a hand on Leo’s back and beamed at Arnie. ‘Good job, lads. Let’s hope he’s the one. Dig deep. We need to unearth any connections between Ashworth and our victims, and also work out how he fits into the corruption angle. Find out what he’s got on DCI Shaw.’

  Leo and Arnie exchanged a glance and shifted awkwardly. Churchill hadn’t realised Karen was sitting a short distance away. He turned, acknowledged her with a nod and carried on. ‘If there’s corruption in the force, it needs to be rooted out,’ he said. ‘If we’re lucky, we could get a two-for-one result with this case.’

  Karen’s hand tightened around her coffee mug. The cheek of Churchill, accusing DCI Shaw of being corrupt! What a joke.

  She turned her back as they paused beside the whiteboard to plan their questions and the direction of the upcoming interview. She lingered by the coffee machine, adding extra milk and stirring the contents of her mug. The suggestion Anthony had been corrupt got under her skin, but she couldn’t let Churchill see that. He’d take her off the case faster than she could blink if she couldn’t control her temper.

  Finally, they moved away from the whiteboard, chatting as they walked.

  ‘Which room will you be in? I might come and observe,’ Karen said before they reached the door.

  Leo checked his watch. ‘We’re in interview room three.’

  Interview room three had an observation room next to it, so she’d be able to watch the interview live rather than on a recorded feed.