Carol noticed Blake’s eyes followed Moira from the room with a look of fond appraisal that made her like him more. When the door closed behind her he gave a brittle cough and led the way over to a pair of sofas at right angles to each other. The coffee table between them was swamped with the Sunday papers. ‘We don’t often get a Sunday without the girls,’ he said, vaguely waving at the sea of newsprint. ‘Their grand-mother’s holding the fort this weekend.’
‘You can never call your time your own in this job. But I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t vitally important.’
Blake nodded. ‘Fire away, then.’
‘Dr Hill came to see us today,’ Carol began.
‘I thought I’d made myself clear on that subject?’ Blake interrupted her, his cheeks growing even pinker than usual.
‘Abundantly. But I didn’t ask him to come in. I’ve deliberately told him nothing about our cases that he couldn’t have read in the papers. He came in because he believes the two murders - three now - that we’re working on have been committed by the same killer he’s been profiling in another jurisdiction.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, that’s pitiful. Is he so desperate for work that he has to thrust himself upon us with flimsy excuses like that? What’s his problem? Is he jealous of young DS Parker?’
Carol waited till he’d subsided, then said, ‘Sir, I’ve known Tony Hill for a long time and I’ve worked closely with him on several key cases. He just doesn’t have that kind of ego. I admit I was sceptical about his analysis at first. But there’s substance to what he has to say.’ She worked her way through the list Tony had laid out for her, thanking her eidetic memory for the power to repeat them verbatim. ‘I know it sounds far-fetched, but there are too many elements in common for coincidence to be an acceptable explanation.’
Blake had looked increasingly gobsmacked as Carol’s recital had unfolded. ‘You’re sure he had no access to your team’s information?’
‘I believe him,’ she said. ‘He’s a lot more interested in closing down a killer than he is in his own self- image.’
‘What does Parker think of all this?’
Carol tried not to scream. ‘I’ve no idea. I haven’t discussed it with him.’
‘You don’t think he’s the person you should have consulted before you came to me? He is the profiler assigned to this case.’ Carol blinked hard. ‘He’s an idiot. His so-called profile is a joke. Any one of my team could have come up with something more useful than his first attempt. And the second version was only marginally better. I know you set great store by the training they’re doing at the faculty, but DS Parker is not going to make any converts. His work is callow and superficial. ‘ She shrugged. ‘There’s no other word for it. I can’t work with him. I’d rather do without a profiler than have one with so little insight.’ Carol stopped for breath. She could almost smell her boats burning. Blake looked thunderous.
‘You’re crossing a line here, Chief Inspector.’
‘I don’t think I am, sir. My job is to bring serious criminals to justice. Every member of my team has been hand-picked because of the unique contribution they make to that goal. I’d have thought you would have supported my drive towards excellence. I’d have thought you would be glad that I’m willing to nail my colours to the mast and say, “This is not good enough for Bradfield Metropolitan Police.”’ She shook her head. ‘If we’re not on the same page on that aspiration, I don’t know that I have a long-term future in this force.’ The words were out before she’d had time to consider whether she wanted to say them out loud.
‘This isn’t the time or the place for that conversation, Chief Inspector. You’ve got three murders to solve.’ He pushed himself to his feet, his struggle with the sofa revealing a man less fit than he looked. He walked over to the tall windows that overlooked the canal and stared out. ‘Dr Hill makes a strong case for this West Mercia murder being part of our series. He may be overstating the case, you understand?’ He turned and gave her a questioning look.
‘If you say so, sir.’
‘What I’d like you to do is to talk to the SIO in Worcester and see what he has to say. Once you’ve spoken to him, you’ll have to decide whether Dr Hill is right. And if, on balance, it seems that he is, you’re going to have to bring West Mercia on board with us. They may have the first in the series, but we’ve got more victims and he’s still active on our patch. I want you heading up the task force to deal with this. Is that clear? This will be our investigation.’
‘I understand.’ Now she understood. Blake thought Tony’s actions were about ego because that was his own guiding principle. ‘Does that mean I can bring Dr Hill fully on board with our cases?’
Blake rubbed his chin between fingers and thumb. ‘I don’t see why not. It’s West Mercia’s tab, though. They brought him in. They can pay for him.’ He gave the first genuine smile she’d seen all afternoon. ‘You can tell them that’s the price of admission to the party.’
CHAPTER 32
The team of officers on the knocker in the Brucehill flats didn’t take long to turn up the two Asian lads who’d stood at the bus stop with Niall the previous afternoon. It was clear from the get-go that this murder was not connected to the quotidian villainies of the estate, so for once there was no threat to anyone local in talking to the police. The normal rules of grassing did not apply. True, some refused to talk to the cops on principle, but there were plenty who still thought the murder of a fourteen-year-old who wasn’t connected to any of the estate’s gangs should not go unavenged. There had been enough people more than happy to give up the witnesses.
So within a couple of hours of the discovery of Niall’s body, Sadiq Ahmed and Ibrahim Mussawi had been huckled into Southern Divisional HQ for questioning. Sam, who had left Stacey and the FLO with Niall’s mother, had a brief discussion with Paula on how to play it. Neither wanted to work with an unfamiliar partner, but the alternative was for them to take one witness and to leave the other to a pair of detectives from Southern about whose abilities they knew nothing. ‘What do you think?’ Sam said.
‘Look at their sheets. Mussawi’s got half a dozen arrests for minor stuff, he’s been in court. He knows the system. He’s not going to be going out of his way to help us. But Ahmed, he’s a virgin. Never been arrested, never mind charged. He’s going to want to keep it that way, I think. We should take him, you and me. Leave Mussawi to the local boys and hope they get lucky,’ Paula said.
