enough to restrict his movements. He turned to the team, saw a bunch of hard-faced men standing there, in the kind of mental and emotional zone reserved for sportsmen and cage fighters. If they were superheroes, aggression would be their superpower and it would explode from their fingertips like lightning.
Their senior officer, Joe Wade, was addressing them.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘Here’s the objective.’
He gestured at his laptop, placed on a folding table that had been brought along specially.
‘This boat. King Edward Quay. Out of here and to the left. About two hundred yards along the quay. The target is on the boat. He may be armed. He is certainly dangerous. He may also have a hostage with him.’
‘Detective Inspector Rose Martin,’ said Phil. ‘She was with DCI Fenwick when he was stabbed.’
Wade nodded, acknowledged the interruption, continued. The team were well drilled, well organised. While Wade marshalled his team into sections, Phil tried to calm his nerves. Anni had given him a description of the layout, which he had passed on to Wade. He wouldn’t be entering the boat until Wade’s team had secured it and brought Ian Buchan out. And, hopefully, Rose Martin. Then, with the area secured, he would enter.
Wade finished his address, looked at Phil.
Phil nodded. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘I just want to emphasise once more that this man is dangerous. He’s an ex- soldier who brought his training home with him. And he’s been making full use of it in this town recently. Be aware. Oh, and one more thing. This is also a missing persons case. We need him to tell us where they are. So please, don’t kill him.’
A few of them laughed, thought he was joking.
He wasn’t.
‘OK?’ said Wade, putting on his helmet, ‘let’s go.’
86
‘You’ve had some real cowboys in here…’
Marina was sitting at Anni’s desk back in the bar, looking through the reports Fiona Welch had made. She wasn’t impressed.
‘Did no one check this?’
Anni looked at her, uncomfortable. ‘Phil wasn’t happy.’
‘I’ll bet he wasn’t. And he shouldn’t have been the only one. What was Ben Fenwick thinking?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Anni, ‘but he was doing it with another part of his anatomy.’
Marina looked at her, open-mouthed. ‘What?’
Anni turned away. ‘Sorry. Said too much.’
Marina looked at the files before her, back to Anni. ‘Tell me.’
Anni pulled up a chair beside Marina, leaned in, dropped her voice. ‘Rose Martin, the missing DS? Ben and her were getting it on.’
Marina nodded. ‘And that impeded his judgement?’
‘He’s a man. You know what they’re like. Especially at work.’ She saw Marina’s reaction. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean-’
‘That’s OK. I know you didn’t.’ Since Marina and Phil had initially got together during a case she had a right to be cagey about criticism.
‘He paid too much attention to her. Allowed her to influence the investigation. Same with Fiona Welch.’
‘Didn’t anyone see this? Try to stop it?’
‘Phil did.’ Anni smiled. ‘He ended up punching the DCI’s lights out.’
Marina smiled. ‘Good for Phil.’ Then she thought of the situation Ben Fenwick was in, felt immediately guilty. ‘Anyway. Moving on. This profile. A child of nine could have come up with something better.’
‘We think now she did it deliberately,’ said Anni. ‘To lead us to Anthony Howe.’
‘I know Anthony Howe. Taught by him and worked with him. He was an arrogant letch but he wasn’t capable of this. Where does Fiona Welch work?’
‘The hospital. But she’s also doing a Ph.D. at the university. This allowed her to teach, she told us.’
‘And Ben Fenwick found her.’
Anni nodded.
Marina wasn’t impressed. ‘He should have asked for a forensic psychologist. And if he got a clinical psychologist he should have had a qualified one otherwise their opinion won’t be recognised. Fiona Welch must be an assistant, right?’
Anni nodded again. ‘Looks like it now. Maybe she told him she was qualified.’
‘I wouldn’t be surprised. She’s clever, though. Inserted herself right at the heart of the investigation, tried to influence it, control it even. I’m surprised Phil went along with it.’
‘He didn’t seem to be on the ball.’
‘Why not?’
Anni was reluctant to speak but knew she had to. ‘I don’t know. Something was distracting him.’
Marina nodded, not wanting to say anything further. ‘Well, whatever. He saw through her eventually.’ She sat back, ran her hands through her hair, thinking. ‘Let’s see what we’ve got. She’s manipulative, she’s controlling. She fed you a false profile that pointed to Anthony Howe. Who was someone she knew, someone who taught her.’
‘Someone she held a grudge against?’
Marina nodded. ‘I’d say that was very likely. Especially if she went to talk to him alone. And the suicide attempt followed. She’s manipulative all right.’
Marina rifled through the files on Anni’s desk. Brought over the post-mortem report on Adele Harrison. ‘And then there’s this…’ She looked through it. ‘I get a completely different feeling from the profile she gave based on this. Maybe it’s because I’m just looking for something different but it doesn’t feel right. Not at all.’
She picked up the phone, called Nick Lines. He answered.
‘Hi, Nick, Marina Esposito here. Listen, this PM on Adele Harrison…’ She looked through it. ‘I’ve read it and got a couple of things to run by you. Just a theory, but here you go. These injuries. Do you think there’s any chance this wasn’t sexually motivated?’
She listened to his reply.
‘I’ll tell you. Because they strike me as overkill, done to make us jump to conclusions. Mislead us. All this genital mutilation… it doesn’t seem consistent with the rest of the injuries. I mean, clearly they’re sadistic and there’s a lot of hatred there that’s been acted out, but…’
She listened again. For quite a while. Her eyebrows raised.
‘Interesting. Very interesting. Thanks, Nick.’
She put the phone down. Anni was looking at her, expectantly.
‘Well?’
‘He agrees. Thinks the sexual mutilation could have been done as a cover-up. No sign of actual penetrative sex, just aggression. And he did tell me something else.’
Anni leaned forward, irritated she was being made to wait.
‘He’s got the preliminary DNA results back from Adele Harrison’s body. Three sets.’
‘Three?’
Marina nodded. ‘And there’s something very interesting about one of them.’
But she didn’t get a chance to say what it was. Because at that moment Mickey Philips strutted into the bar looking flushed but exultant, and told them Mark Turner was in an interview room, ready to be cracked.
He looked between Anni and Marina.
‘So what d’you reckon?’ he said. ‘Good cop, bad cop or what?’
‘Let’s have a little chat,’ said Marina.
87
