so. DCI Franks. She knew his number.
‘Easy to remember,’ he had said to her when she had first met him and was programming it into her phone, ‘Six, six, six, three, three, three. A devil and a half of a number.’ And he had laughed.
The quip had been rehearsed, but he was right, she had remembered.
She closed her eyes to recall the first five digits, then called the number. Her heart was hammering as she waited for him to answer.
‘DCI Franks.’
She took a deep breath, another. ‘It’s Marina.’ She didn’t know what he would say next or how he would react, so she jumped in quickly. ‘Listen. I haven’t got long … ’
74
Anni had always hated coming in to work on a Sunday. Easter Sunday even more so. The police station on Southway in Colchester was virtually empty. Just a minimum of officers and shift-working support staff keeping the building going over the weekend. The excesses of Saturday night had been mopped up, and with no football scheduled, those on call were making the most of not having to be there unless absolutely needed. Or working the murder in Jaywick, looking for Josephina.
She sat at her desk, booted up her computer. Mickey was beside her. After Milhouse’s call, they had decided to go back to the station to check through records.
Walking into the building alongside Mickey, Anni had felt that those few people there were all staring at them. They know, she was thinking, they know what we’ve done. That we’re now lovers. And they’re judging us for it. Through the main door, down the corridor, into the MIS office. Feeling eyes, seen and unseen, staring at her. She had glanced at Mickey a few times, just to see if he was feeling the same thing. He was staring straight ahead, not looking at her.
Yep, she thought. He’s feeling the same thing.
In the MIS office, at her desk, she had reverted to police officer mode. And now she was engrossed in what was appearing on her screen.
‘Graham Watts,’ she said.
Mickey scooted his chair across, sat next to her, looked at the screen. She was aware of his arm brushing against hers, his thigh. She could feel the heat from his body. More intoxicating than cannabis.
Mickey kept staring at the screen, not looking at her.
‘Here,’ she said. ‘Worked for the Sloanes.’ She peered closer. ‘High up too. Very high. Trusted lieutenant, the works. Started as a gangmaster on the farm, worked his way up. When they diversified into industrial farming, he got promoted. And then … Oh. They let him go. Cut him off, apparently, just like that. That’s when the law became involved.’
‘How?’ asked Mickey, turning to look at her.
‘Cautioned for threatening behaviour. Says here they owed him money. Lots of it. Cut him off without a pension. He tried to talk to them about it, then said he was going to expose them. That was the word he used, expose. The Sloanes said he had nothing on them, that he threatened them, made up a lot of lies. Tried to attack them, got a bit handy.’
Mickey read the next few lines on her screen. ‘They never pressed charges. Just let it go. And he never exposed anything.’ He looked sideways at her. ‘You know what that means.’
Anni nodded. ‘He may not have got his pension, but they gave him enough to keep him quiet.’
‘Exactly. Maybe they didn’t pay him enough to keep him quiet for long.’
‘You think that’s what this is?’ she asked, turning to him. ‘Extortion? Blackmail gone wrong?’
‘Could be. Maybe he ran out of money. Came back for more.’
‘And you think, what, that the Sloanes had him killed?’
‘Worth bearing in mind.’
They kept looking at each other. Anni saw a gleam in Mickey’s eye, a slight upward pull at the sides of his mouth. He moved in closer to her.
‘Stop it … ’
‘Haven’t done anything.’
‘And you’re not going to. We’ve got work to do.’
They went back to the screen.
‘The Sloanes,’ said Mickey. ‘Brother and sister. Bloodbath house of death, and all that.’
‘That’s them.’
He tapped some keys, brought up a different screen. ‘Yeah. Thought so. They were left for dead when their adopted brother went mental with a shotgun. He killed the rest of the family, including his own mother. Stuart Sloane, that was his name.’
Anni frowned. ‘Stuart Sloane … ’
Mickey peered closer. ‘And here’s something else. Guess who the first person was to find Stuart Sloane with the shotgun?’
‘No idea.’
‘Graham Watts.’
Anni looked at him. ‘Interesting. When was this?’
‘Sixteen, seventeen years ago.’
She turned back to her screen. ‘Stuart Sloane was released on Friday. He never made it to the hostel. Disappeared.’
‘And now Graham Watts is dead.’
Anni shrugged. ‘Coincidence?’
‘Dunno.’ Mickey sat back, thinking. ‘There’s something else. Wait … Didn’t … ’ He frowned in concentration. ‘Wasn’t there some connection with them in that murder case Jessie James was looking into?’
Anni smiled. ‘Just can’t take her seriously with that name.’
‘That guy she went to question. Turned up dead. He had some connection with the Sloanes, I think.’
Mickey’s phone rang. He checked the display. ‘Franks,’ he said. He picked up.
Anni watched him as his eyes widened.
‘Is she OK?’
She knew immediately who he was talking about, and gestured for him to put the phone on loudspeaker, but he was concentrating too intently on what Franks was saying. She moved closer and tried to follow the conversation, but it was too one-sided, so she settled for waiting until it had finished.
Eventually Mickey hung up. Anni looked at him expectantly. ‘Well?’
‘Marina called. She’s alive and well. He’s going to meet her tonight.’
Questions tumbled through Anni’s mind, one fast on the heels of another.
‘That’s all I know,’ Mickey said, pre-empting what she was about to say next. ‘All he could tell me.’
‘So are we on for tonight too, whatever it is?’
‘No, we’re not.’ Mickey sounded disappointed. ‘I told him we were turning up connections in the murder of Graham Watts and the Suffolk murder. He wants us to keep working that. Apparently our presence might cause a distraction.’ Mickey’s intonation made it clear what he thought about that.
‘Is that so?’
‘We’re too closely associated with Marina.’
‘So we’re good enough to look for her but not good enough to bring her in.’
‘Apparently.’
‘So we just stay here. Keep on keeping on.’
‘Yeah.’ He thought for a few seconds. ‘I’m glad she’s OK, though.’
‘Hope she’s looked after my car.’ Anni looked again at the screen. ‘And we’ve got plenty to be going on with. We’ll be here for a while, I think.’
‘We will.’
