“Sean? I spoke to him only earlier,” he replied in a rumbling London accent.
“I’m aware. It’s about the study you sent him. It correlates with a homicide investigation we’re working on up here, regarding several of his employees.”
“Yes, I heard,” he answered. “Brilliant researchers, according to Sean. How is the study related?” He asked.
“It bears a very strong resemblance to the one that Abbie Whelan and Sonia Petrilli were working on before the attacks. We think that whoever sent it to you may be connected to this case.”
“Christ,” he muttered. “I’m glad I sent it up there then.”
“As are we,” I answered. “Do you have a name for who it was that submitted it to you?”
“I do. Bear with me one moment, Inspector,” he said. There was a faint clunk as he set the phone down, and I could hear his fingers typing away at a keyboard. “Here it is,” he said. “The study was submitted this morning, at eleven fifteen by a Toomas Kask. Is that name familiar?” He asked.
“It very much is. Thank you, Dr Moshiri,” I told him, hanging up the phone shortly after.
“Sir?” Mills appeared back at my side, Quaid left in the kitchen, and the sergeant ran his eyes worriedly across my face.
“The study came from Kask,” I told him, hopping up from the chair. “Let’s get over to the hotel,” I practically growled at him. Mills leapt into action, and we snatched everything we needed from our office, left Quaid with a constable and charged from the station, over the road and across the street to the small hotel that Kask had put himself up in.
I barged through the doors, startling the woman on the front desk as I stormed over, my id already in my hand and flashed her way as I made for the lift. Mills ran after me, hitting the floor button, and the soft jazz that filled the lift as we went up a few floors did little to soothe the energy that riled through me.
“You think he staged the break-in?” Mills asked, though I knew he was only voicing his own theories aloud. “Did it to stop us from looking too closely at him?”
“I’d say so. Explains why nothing was taken, no fingerprints, nothing. Staged the break-in and then ran out and hid in the lane to make it all the more believable.”
It was clever, annoyingly. The lift stopped, the doors splitting apart with a ding, and we charged down the carpeted hallway to Kask’s room. There was no officer outside, and I hammered my fist on the door.
“Kask? It’s Inspector Thatcher,” I called through the wood. Mills nudged me and handed me a master card that he must have got from the receptionist whilst I was busy storming around. I put the card in the slot, and once the light turned green, I shouldered the door open, looking around the room.
He’d been here. That was clear. A suitcase was open on the desk with some clothes piled in haphazardly, but no sign of Kask himself.
“Damn it,” I muttered, turning and walking back out into the hallway. We took the stairs back down, our feet clicking loudly in the echoed space, heading back over to the receptionist, who looked up at us nervously. I tried for a reassuring smile when I reached her.
“Do you know when Toomas Kask left the hotel?” I asked.
“He hasn’t checked out,” she told me. “He and the officer left this morning at around ten,” she answered. “Something about getting some work done at home?” She sounded a bit confused by the whole thing, and to be honest, I couldn’t blame her.
“He said he’d need to go back to the gardens,” Mills reminded me over my shoulder, sliding the card back over to her. She took with a grateful, slightly scared smile, and I turned around.
“Who’s the officer with Kask?”
“Dunnes, sir.” I gave him a smart nod and pulled my phone out, praying that I had Dunnes in my contacts, and thankfully, there he was.
He answered quickly, good man. “PC Dunnes speaking.”
“Dunnes, it’s DCI Thatcher,” I told him as Mills and I strode from the hotel, back over to the station. “You’re with Kask?”
“I am, sir,” he replied. “He wanted to return to the property to get some work done. He’s been in the greenhouse most of the day, sir.”
“No sign of anything strange?” I asked.
“No,” he also sounded confused.
I breathed a sigh of relief and nodded towards the car park, Mills quickly pulling his keys from his pocket. “Sergeant Mills and I are one our way over. Keep Kask there but don’t tell him we’re coming.”
“Is there trouble, sir?”
“Potentially. Just stay put, act natural. We’ll be there as fast as we can.” I hung up, swinging myself into the passenger seat of Mills” car. He set off the second the door shut, and I struggled to click my seatbelt into place as he veered around a roundabout. Kask, I muttered to myself, should have guessed.
“Course of action, sir?” Mills asked.
“We get there, and we bring him in on suspicion of murder. We’ll need a DNA sample sent to forensics. If we can pin the blood from the scene of Abbie’s attack, we’ll have him.”
Mills nodded and sped up the car, charging from the city in the open wild countryside. It was a good thing it was nearly August, I thought to myself, we’d have the daylight on our side.
Twenty-Six
Thatcher
Mills drove somewhat manically, and if the circumstances were anything but what they were, I’d be shouting at him until my voice went hoarse. He skirted around the country lanes in a way that would make the locals stop and stare, sending mud and stones flying in his wake. It was almost funny, really, watching smart, sensible, methodical Mills turn into a stark raving mad man behind the wheel. As I bashed into the window a few times, my hand gripping the safety bar above my head, I wondered if this was how he
