Glass stared at him.
‘Detective Constable Anni Hepburn. Where is she?’
Glass sighed as if Mickey was no more than an irritant. ‘Detective Constable Hepburn is undergoing treatment in the General for a gunshot wound received during the abduction of the boy.’
‘Is she OK?’
‘She’s well. The wound wasn’t serious, as far as we can gather.’
Relief flooded through Mickey’s body. He slumped back into his seat. Glass looked down at his notes once more, continued. ‘Jenny Swan, the child psychologist working with the boy, hasn’t been so lucky. She’s in intensive care. It’s touch-and-go. Right. Updates.’
‘What about the person who drove the boy away?’ said Jane Gosling. ‘Any news?’
‘Just getting to that.’ Glass looked towards Adrian Wren. ‘Adrian?’
Adrian Wren stood up. ‘Nothing much on CCTV,’ he said. He took out photos from a file on the desk before him, handed them round. ‘This is the image from the hospital’s cameras of the vehicle driving away. As you can see, it’s a green four-by-four, a Range Rover. Old, well-used. I’ve tried to get close-ups of the driver and any passengers there might be.’ He handed out another photo. Marina looked at it. The driver’s face was obscured. And where the passenger’s head should have been was just a shapeless, faceless mass of darkness.
The hood, she thought. He was wearing the hood.
‘It looks like he’s wearing something over his face,’ said Adrian. ‘Making sure we can’t see him.’
‘A hood,’ said Marina. All eyes turned to her. ‘It was a hood. I saw it first hand at the hospital. Looked like it was made out of sacking, hessian, something like that.’
‘That rules out a joke-shop mask, then,’ said Mickey.
‘We only had a partial on the number plate. We’ve put it through the computer but can’t get a match. We reckon the plates were stolen, if not the vehicle itself.’
‘What about CCTV from the town?’
‘We’ve looked. Nothing. Either they took a route out of town that avoided the cameras, or they’ve gone to ground somewhere. DCI Glass gave chase but lost them. He’s given a description of the car to all uniforms. We’ve had the helicopter out looking for it. Nothing. But we’re still looking.’
He sat down again.
‘Thank you, Adrian,’ said Glass. He turned to Mickey. ‘DS Philips. Your turn.’
Mickey stood up. Marina could tell he wasn’t happy. She wondered whether he would use this opportunity to say something, or whether he would just make his report.
He opened his mouth to speak.
She would soon find out.
86
Phil opened his eyes.
And in those first few, blissful seconds he was nothing. Could have been anyone, anywhere. His identity as yet unwritten, his mind still clinging to sleep, not yet caught up to his waking body. It didn’t stay that way for long. Within seconds he knew where he was, what had happened.
And who he was.
He groaned, turned over. Closed his eyes again.
He replayed the events of the previous night once more, stopping to examine them in close-up detail. Again and again, over and over. Trying to work out what he thought, what he felt. Whether everything being out in the open now was a relief to him, had put his mind at rest over his parentage, or whether it had just brought along another layer of problems, of uncertainties.
Eventually he sighed, opened his eyes. Can’t lie here all day, he thought, sitting upright. Then remembered he was suspended.
With another sigh, he flopped back down on the pillow. Found another level of unhappiness just for that. He checked the time. Realised Marina must have left him to sleep. He listened. No Josephina. He remembered. She had stayed at Don and Eileen’s last night.
Not wanting to spend the day lying in bed, he threw the duvet off, got up. His problems wouldn’t be solved by staying there all day. But he still needed somewhere to go, something to do.
He went into the bathroom, turned on the shower.
Smiled.
He knew where he could go first.
87
Mickey stood up. Looked round the briefing room. Too many empty chairs, he thought. Too many missing faces. Then looked at Glass. Too many faces here I’d rather not see.
He glanced down at his notes, back to the room.
‘Any news on the murder of Adam Weaver?’ Glass looked at him, waiting for an answer.
Mickey paused. Remembered the text message from Stuart. It didn’t seem right, he thought. He didn’t know whether that was because it wasn’t what he had expected to hear or because it wasn’t what he had wanted to hear. Perhaps both. It didn’t feel right. But it was what he had heard, so he had to share it with the team.
‘I’ve been asking around,’ he said to the room. ‘Put a few feelers out. And I’ve had something back from an informant.’
Glass leaned forward, interested.
‘Nothing much, just saying that he hasn’t heard anything locally about it. Reckons the word going round is that it was a hit. A professional hit.’
‘From here?’ asked Glass.
‘From Lithuania,’ said Mickey, trying to mask the disbelief in his voice. ‘That’s all he’s heard.’
Glass nodded. ‘That runs current with my thinking, too,’ he said. ‘If that’s the case – and it’s looking increasingly like it is – then I think we can safely say the killer is back in Lithuania by now.’
‘Yeah,’ said Mickey by way of agreement, ‘but it still doesn’t add up. The way he was killed, the murder weapon, none of it points to a professional hit.’
‘Why not?’ said Glass.
‘Because it was a knife, for a start,’ Mickey said. ‘You’d have to get close up to do that. And if you want to get close up, the other word that goes along with that is personal. A hitman would have used a bullet, done it from a distance. Quick and clean. Then gone.’
‘Maybe they do things differently in the east,’ said Glass, hint of a smile.
‘And there’s also the amount of blows. Nick Lines still hasn’t come up with a definite number. At last count it was about twenty. All this screams out that Weaver knew his killer. That it was personal.’
‘Yet all you’ve heard points to the contrary,’ said Glass. He seemed to be thinking, deeply. Came to a decision. ‘Right, DS Philips. If you’ve got intuition on something, I always think it’s best to let it play out. So keep looking into it.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘But don’t expect too much. And don’t stop looking into the other angles too.’
‘Right, sir.’
‘Thank you, DS Philips.’
Mickey, clearly unhappy, sat down. Jane Gosling leaned across to him. ‘Looks like someone’s going to get a free holiday in Vilnius,’ she said. ‘Toss you for it.’
Mickey smiled, sat back.
Glass was looking round once more. ‘Marina?’
