‘He tried to cover his tracks, but it’s all over his hard disk. Recipes for TATP, how to build a bomb, how to make a detonator. Deleted emails inquiring about the availability of chemicals. I’m copying it all right now, before we hand it over to CTC. What’s interesting…’ she tailed off, unsure of her ground when she wasn’t talking about her speciality.
‘Yes?’ Carol said. ‘What’s interesting is…?’
‘Well, it’s a bit of a dog that didn’t bark,’ Stacey said. ‘Apart from the deleted emails about the chemicals, there are no emails at all on this laptop. Nothing to indicate any co-conspirators. It’s clean. Either there’s another computer somewhere, or they communicated face to face and via texts, or he did this by himself.’
‘There must be a computer at work. It’s a family firm, he’ll have had access,’ Chris said.
‘Too late,’ Stacey said. ‘CTC have already got that.’
‘How do you know that?’ Chris said.
‘News footage on Sky. They just showed the men in black raiding First Fabrics and walking out with armfuls of hardware,’ Stacey said. ‘That’s the advantage of having two screens.’
‘Thanks, Stacey. That’s given us something to think about Carol said. ‘And we do have something else which we think we have to ourselves at this point. Sam?’
Sam squared his shoulders, ready to strut a little. ‘I got a lovely break at Victoria Park. When Chris texted us to say the suspect was a young Asian man wearing overalls and a baseball cap, I was walking along the back of the stand when what do I see but an Asian male wearing overalls and a baseball cap. So I get alongside him double quick. Turns out he’s not even Muslim. His name’s Vijay Gupta and he’s a cleaner at the ground. I run the bomber’s description past him and when I get to the A1 Electricals van, I see him reacting. He doesn’t want to talk about it, but when I push him, he says he saw a van like that on Thursday evening. He and his brother were visiting a cousin who lives in a bedsit in Colton and he noticed the van because it was parked round the back, out of the way, where him and his cousin usually park so they don’t piss off the residents, and he’d never seen it there before.’ Sam couldn’t keep the self-satisfied grin off his face.
‘You did get an address before they huckled you off to Scargill Street?’ Kevin said stiffly.
‘Oh yeah, I got an address.’ Sam reached for a piece of paper and a marker pen off Carol’s desk. He wrote something down, then displayed it for all to see. ‘You could say I got an address.’
‘No, Sam, you didn’t get an address. We got an anonymous phone tip,’ Carol said firmly. ‘Things are already difficult enough with CTC without us going out of our way to make things worse. We got a phone tip and we decided to check it out before we wasted CTC’s time with it. That’s the line. Now, before we all get stuck into that, there are a couple of other matters. Paula, I know it feels like a lifetime ago, but did you get any further with tracking down Jack Anderson?’
Paula looked at Stacey, who shook her head. ‘No, chief. No progress.’
‘And I got nowhere with Robbie’s parents. They’d never heard the name. So we’ve got no active leads to pursue on Robbie?’ They all exchanged glances, disappointment obvious. ‘I’d prefer it if that wasn’t the case, but it does mean we’re not being derelict by looking at other things. And there is one very big other thing that has just landed in our laps. Seven years ago, a detective superintendent left Bradfield Police under something of a cloud,’ Carol said, an image of her old boss as he had been slipping unwanted into her mind.
‘Popeye Cross,’ Kevin said.
Carol inclined her head towards him. ‘That’s right. Well, Tom Cross redeemed himself this afternoon. He was one of the heroes who dragged the injured to safety after the bomb. He ended up being taken to hospital himself. He died there earlier this evening. But not because of anything he did in the wake of the bombing. According to the doctor who treated him, he was poisoned.’
‘Poisoned?’ Paula interrupted. ‘Like Robbie? With ricin?’
‘No, not with ricin. Though the doctor who treated Tom Cross is the same one who diagnosed the ricin in Robbie,’ Carol said.
‘Sounds like she’s either one smart cookie or else Munchausen’s by Proxy,’ Chris said. Carol thought she was only half-joking.
‘Well, that’s what we’re going to have to figure out. Paula, I want you to go down to Bradfield Cross A&E and talk to Dr Blessing.’
Paula’s face said it all. They were chasing the big game, she was consigned to the small fry. ‘But, chief…’
‘Paula, you’re the best interviewer we have. Besides, you know her already. I need you to do this because we need everything we can get from her. What poison it was. When it was likely to have been administered. Make arrangements for samples to go to toxicology, and get the results from any lab work they did at Bradfield Cross. Stacey, get what you can from Aziz’s hard drive, then be very polite and hand it in to the CTC people in the HOLMES suite. The rest of you, with me. It’s time to do what we’re paid for.’
‘It’s a bit freaky, this Tom Cross murder,’ Kevin said as Chris eased the car through the heavy traffic towards Yousef Aziz’s address.
‘What? Because you knew the geezer?’
‘Well yeah, that. But the poison thing. If Danny Wade and Robbie Bishop are connected, that’s two guys who went to Harriestown High and ended up poisoned, right?’
‘Right. But I don’t think where they went to school is a big deal.’
‘No? Would it surprise you if I told you that Tom Cross is another former pupil of Harriestown High?’ Kevin was drumming his fingers on his knees. ‘Another one who started off with nothing and ended up loaded. He won the pools, you know.’
‘I didn’t know that,’ Chris said. ‘You’re right, it is a bit freaky. But I think that’s all it is.’
Kevin shook his head. ‘No. Three’s the charm. It’s more than just a bizarre coincidence.’
Chris swore at a white van cutting in front of her. ‘How can it be? You think somebody’s killing people from your old school because they’ve made a bob or two? I tell you, even Tony Hill would balk at that one.’
