‘Hell, Lucy. Take care, will you?’
‘The man didn’t see me. I made sure of it.’
‘Even so. I know what you’re like. And they sound like a nasty lot…’
‘Eyes in the back of my head. Promise.’
Come 5pm she was settled in MIR. As usual on a murder investigation, you wouldn’t know it was a weekend. Every desk was occupied and the atmosphere intense, with detectives checking alibis, CCTV, statements from neighbours, people who knew Kaitlyn, who knew Ricky. Forty dedicated officers in the office and outside, creating not just leads to follow but tons of paperwork.
She’d given the photo of the red Range Rover to Albin but he hadn’t been able to enhance the image much. As Dan had said, at least they knew the make and model of the car, so all wasn’t lost.
Lucy started trawling for information on TASS. Wikipedia gave her an outline which she used to start nailing down some facts. Firstly, that it was a private limited company established on 15 June 1995. TASS made one product: an explosives detector known as the BlackShark Sniffer, priced between £5,000 and £50,000 per unit. The BlackShark Sniffer had been sold to twenty-five countries from Mexico to Lebanon and Thailand. The Saudi government was said to have spent £62 million on the devices.
Lucy whistled. This wasn’t just big bucks. It was huge.
She read on to see the BlackShark Sniffer’s inventor Helen Flowers, a former saleswoman, had been previously employed by the MoD – Ministry of Defence – one of the biggest public procurement organisations in Europe…
Lucy stared at the name Helen Flowers. She hadn’t expected it to be a woman. Did that make her sexist?
Helen Flowers had apparently made millions of pounds from the sales of the BlackShark Sniffer, with which she’d bought a £4.5 million house in the Golden Triangle in Cheshire, where all the footballers lived. She’d owned holiday homes in Spain and Florida, a £1.5 million luxury yacht that she kept in Puerto Banús, a stable of Porches and Mercedes, and two racehorses called Black Shark and The Barracuda.
Lucy made a note of the racehorses before she returned to read that Helen Flowers was eventually brought down by a whistle-blower who said everyone at TASS knew that the devices were nothing more than a ‘glorified tin can with a length of string’.
In 2001 export of the device was banned by the British government. A warrant was issued for Helen Flowers’s arrest on suspicion of fraud. She vanished overnight. The police impounded her cars, raided the Watford factory, put traces on her phones, watched her house. Interpol put a warrant out for her in Spain, but nobody saw her again. There were rumours she’d moved to Florida, but nothing was corroborated and the FBI soon gave up searching.
Lucy asked Google for a picture of Helen Flowers. There weren’t many since Flowers had vanished before the existence of smart phones, just a handful of her at the races, at the parade ring. Mid to late twenties. High heels, lots of bling. Take away her jewels, her highlighted blonde hair and red fingernails, she wouldn’t be particularly memorable. Her features were soft and bland. No freckles or moles. A slightly narrow mouth, perhaps. Eyes a little small. She was one of the plain Janes of the world. And nothing like Chris Malone, the sinuous-looking woman who’d tried to poison Ricky.
Lucy enlarged the photos, studying the angles of the woman’s face, trying to get something to fix in her mind. It was almost impossible, the woman was so bland. She put a phone call through to the SFO – Serious Fraud Office – forgetting it was Saturday. Could it wait until Monday? She drummed her fingers on the desk, thinking. Not really, she thought, but she didn’t want to piss anyone off, so she went and saw the SIO.
‘No, it can’t wait,’ he agreed. ‘I’ll get you someone to talk to. Give me ten minutes.’
It actually took him twice that long to get hold of the chief investigator, Colin Pearson, who headed up the SFO intelligence unit, during which time Lucy had found two more photographs of Helen Flowers. One was of her at a fundraising party in Mayfair, the other a charity event at London’s Guildhall, supporting members of Her Majesty’s Armed Forces and veterans who’d served in Iraq and Afghanistan. She didn’t seem to be accompanied by anyone and Lucy wondered if she’d ever had a partner or boyfriend.
‘Pearson says he’ll see you at the SFO at seven,’ Jon Banks told her.
37
Colin Pearson wore jeans, a button-down shirt beneath a woollen jumper and big mud-spattered Timberland boots. He’d been returning from a walk with his family when Jon Banks had rung. Lucy apologised for interrupting his Saturday but he waved it aside.
‘I’ve been after Flowers for twenty years. Some might say another day or so wouldn’t matter, but Jon told me there’s been a murder?’
Lucy filled him in on everything she knew, including Dan’s experiences in Morocco, and being warned off in Wales.
‘Nasty.’ Pearson frowned. ‘But I’m not sure it’s our girl. She was a bit of a cold fish, money-obsessed, but that wouldn’t necessarily make her a killer.’
‘Perhaps Kaitlyn found out where Flowers was? That would be motivation enough, wouldn’t it?’
He was still frowning. ‘I suppose so.’
‘Did she ever have a male partner? A husband?’
‘There was a man, but he was more a business colleague. Neil Greenhill. She used him to sell to countries who wouldn’t deal with a woman. Like the Middle East. It infuriated her that she couldn’t do it herself. She was the epitome of a feminist.’
‘Where’s Greenhill now?’
‘Disappeared.’ A look of frustration crossed his face as he brought out a file, bulging with papers and photographs. ‘Both of them vanished like puffs of bloody smoke.’
‘Together? Or separately?’
He mulled it
