sighed. Maybe if Chris had been around from the get-go, Detective Inspector Don Merrick would still be among them.
‘Pointless,’ she chided herself, reaching for the bag and tucking in without really registering what she was eating. Hardly a day went by without her wondering whether this or that detail might have made a difference to Don. In her heart, she knew she was only trying to find a way to blame herself instead of him. Tony had told her more than once that it was OK to be angry with Don for what he’d done. But it still didn’t feel possible, never mind right.
As she ate, Carol made a few notes, sketching a rough agenda for the case conference. By quarter to nine, she was ready. There was no reason to wait for the prearranged time, so she emerged from her office and assembled the team around her. Carol stood in front of one of the whiteboards that contained a digest of all the information they had amassed so far on Robbie Bishop.
On her word, Sam kicked off the proceedings with a recap of their interview with Bindie Blyth. He finished up with Bindie’s vague theory about gambling. ‘Anybody have any comment?’ Carol asked.
Stacey, their computer and ICT specialist, waggled her pen. ‘She’s right that there’s a huge amount of gambling money swilling around in the Far East. And a lot of it is staked on football. The Australians in particular have done a lot of investigative work into the way they use computer networks to rake the money in. And yes, there’s a lot of associated crime and corruption. But the point is, the gambling syndicates don’t have to resort to assassination to skew the odds in their favour. They can buy what they need.’
‘You’re saying that even with the amount of money we pay our footballers, they’ve still got their hands out for more?’ Paula feigned shock.
‘There’s more than one way to fix a game,’ Stacey said. ‘Arguably, the match officials have more influence over outcome. And they don’t earn mega salaries.’
Sam snorted derisively. ‘And they’re so crap, nobody would notice them doing it on purpose. If a referee can give one player three yellow cards in the same game when he’s supposed to send him off after the second one, imagine what he could do if he was taking backhanders. So you’re saying that while these gambling syndicates might cross the line to make sure the sums come out in their favour, you don’t think they’d go as far as murder?’
Stacey nodded. ‘That’s exactly what I’m saying. It doesn’t match the way they go about things.’
Kevin looked up from the gun he was doodling on his pad. ‘Yeah, but that’s what you might call the traditional end of dodgy gambling. See, this ricin thing, that spells Russian mafia to me. A lot of those guys, they’re ex-KGB and FSB. It was the KGB that helped the Bulgarians assassinate Georgi Markov using ricin. What if the Russians have decided they want a slice of the international betting cash? It would be just like them to be so bloody heavy- handed.’
Stacey shrugged. ‘It makes a kind of sense, I suppose. But I’ve not heard anything about the Russians getting into this sort of thing. Maybe we should ask Six?’
Carol shuddered. The last thing she wanted was to allow the intelligence services anywhere near her operation. Their reputation slithered before them, in particular their reluctance to go away empty-handed once they’d been invited in. Carol didn’t want to have her murder inquiry transformed into some sinister conspiracy until she was certain it wasn’t a straightforward murder for one of the customary motives. ‘Until we’ve got something more solid connecting the Russians to this, I’m not going near the spooks,’ she said firmly. ‘At this point, we have nothing to suggest Robbie Bishop’s murder was anything to do with gambling or the Russian mafia. Let’s wait till we have some evidence before we get over-excited about theories like Bindie’s. We’ll keep it in mind, but I don’t think it’s worth spending investigative resources on it right now. Stacey, what have you got for us?’
Never at her best when dealing with humans, Stacey shifted in her seat and studiously avoided eye contact. ‘So far, I’ve found nothing of interest on Bishop’s computer. No emails sent after his night out on Thursday, except one to his agent agreeing to an interview for a Spanish men’s magazine. Also, he never visited the bestdays.co.uk website. Not from his home computer, at any rate. His history list is almost exclusively related to football or music. He bought some new speakers online just last week. Which kind of knocks the suicide idea on the head, if that was in anybody’s mind.’
‘I don’t know. If I was depressed, I might spend a few bob to cheer myself up,’ Sam said. Catching Carol rolling her eyes, he hastily added, ‘Not that we’re thinking suicide.’
‘Not with ricin. Too obscure, too painful, too slow,’ Carol said, echoing what Denby had said to her. ‘As for the Best Days website, given that Robbie did have the url on him, I think we can assume that whoever he was drinking with that night was familiar with the site. Stacey, do you think there’s any way they can help us?’
‘Depends on their attitude,’ she began.
‘And on whether they’re football fans,’ Kevin said.
Stacey looked dubious. ‘Maybe. What I thought we could ask for in the first instance is for them to send an email to all their Harriestown High subscribers asking them to contact us with a recent photo and an account of their movements on Thursday night. That way, we set things in motion without having to wait for a warrant.’
‘Isn’t that sending out a big fat warning to our killer?’ Kevin asked. ‘Tipping them off to our interest? I went to Harriestown High, you know. We weren’t the most authority-friendly bunch. Harriestown wasn’t yuppified back then, it was pretty rough. Even in Robbie’s day, it wasn’t the sort of place where they fall over themselves to help the police. You’re dealing with the kind of people who could easily send a photo of someone completely different just to wind us up, never mind throwing us off the trail. I say we ask the site for the names and addresses of their subscribers and if they won’t come across, we go for the warrant.’
Carol saw the momentary flash of irritation in Stacey’s eyes. She normally kept her opinions on her colleagues’ lack of understanding of the world of information technology to herself; it was rare to catch a glimpse of her true feelings.
Assuming an air of weary patience, Stacey said, ‘The only address the website will have stored for their subscribers is the email address. It’s possible they may have credit card billing addresses, but even if they do, that’s covered by the data protection legislation and we definitely would need a warrant to get that. The important thing here is that, however we get in touch with these people, there’s no way to keep it secret. The first person we talk to will be online before we’re back in our cars, posting our line of inquiry. We might as well be upfront from the start. The online community is much more inclined to co-operate when they’re included in the process. We take them with us, we get their help. We treat them as potentially hostile and they’ll make our life twice as difficult.’ It was a major speech for Stacey. A measure, Carol thought, of how seriously she was taking this case.
‘OK. Give it a whirl, Stacey. See if you can get the Best Days people to co-operate. If you hit a wall, come back to me. And, Kevin? You can cast an eye over the pics from your era, see if your old classmates are confounding your
