‘You’ve been whining about the same thing for the past ten minutes, John, and I’m sick of it,’ Ansari said, her voice loud and rising in pitch with every word. ‘I don’t want to hear another word about how badly we supposedly treated Glen Ashton.’
‘It’s an opinion,’ Hunt replied, leaning forward. ‘And I’m entitled to it every bit as much as you’re entitled to yours.’
‘The difference is, I’m not spouting mine for the sake of it. I’m only reacting to you complaining all the bloody time.’
‘And why shouldn’t I? You might be happy working alongside somebody while he’s getting shafted, Gul, but I’m not. He got a rough deal, and you know it.’
The disagreement might have ended there – just two stressed colleagues seething at one another before deciding to walk away – but that was the moment when DC Gratton entered the fray. He took Hunt’s side.
‘We pushed him out into the fringes on everything,’ he claimed, drawing a supportive nod from Hunt. ‘I know he came in here with a superior attitude, but once he buckled down he was only ever useful to the investigation. He found himself stuck on nothing jobs with us time and time again. So, no, I wouldn’t blame him, either, if he’s taken fresh information to his own people back at ERSOU.’
Bliss kept his thoughts to himself, allowing Bishop to step in to defuse the situation. ‘Is that how you two regard the actions I gave you both?’ he demanded, looking from Hunt to Gratton and back again. ‘John, you’re the more experienced, so you can go first. Is that how you feel about the task of locating that server?’
Hunt stood his ground. He was not one for confrontation, but this time he looked as if he was about to dig his heels in. ‘If I’m being honest, yes: it felt like a nothing job at this stage. I realise we have to cover every aspect, and gaining evidence along the way is vital. However, with everything else that was going on I thought it was a job we could delay until we’d at least identified our man.’
‘I see.’ Bishop cleared his throat, buying time. ‘It didn’t occur to you that one of the reasons why I decided to keep you on it was because the Parkinsons might pull the plug at any moment? And I do mean literally. Down the server, switch it off, physically remove it from its current location, destroy the contents of its hard drives.’
Hunt stared back at Bishop. His defiance wavered only momentarily.
‘We don’t know for sure that it has anything to do with the Parkinsons.’
‘Then for argument’s sake, let’s say it is them. My argument still stands.’
‘Surely between us and the NCA we’ve collected enough data to establish precisely what that server’s role was.’
‘Raw data, yes. Traffic flowing in and out, yes. Conclusive evidence…? I’m sure the CPS will tell us in due course, once we’ve submitted our MG forms. But think how much happier we’d all be if we had the physical server in our possession, John… Phil. And then think how much happier still we’d be if we were lucky enough to collar the Parkinsons attempting to strip down that same server. While it’s still running, we can continue to both monitor and record it. We can tell if data is being deleted – and let’s assume it will be, ahead of any physical switching off. You two may see that job as plain old dull police work; me, I see it as a vital part of the overall job. A job that had to be done, requiring trustworthy people to do it. I chose you two and Glen Ashton. Not glamorous, I grant you. But potentially critical. I’m sorry you don’t see it that way.’
Bishop allowed his disappointment in the two DCs to sink in before turning away and nodding in Bliss’s direction. ‘What have you got for us, Jimmy?’
‘Our man’s photo, possibly. We think so, at least.’ He explained the circumstances of their find, their search through the folders and the image files themselves. He took the plastic evidence bag containing the chess piece from his pocket and lobbed it underhand to DC Ansari. ‘There’s a photo on there showing the man wearing a fleece. On the fleece is what we think could be a logo. Can’t make it out, though. I was hoping Gul could find us a rabbit hiding somewhere inside the hat.’
‘I’ll get to work on it immediately,’ Ansari said, swivelling in her chair, prising open the bag as she turned.
‘Look in the Miscellaneous folder. There’s only one image of the man in his fleece.’
‘What other dramas have we missed?’ DCI Warburton asked, perhaps hoping to take the pressure down a notch or two with some levity.
Bliss responded first. ‘I took an interesting call from Belmarsh. The deputy governor himself confidently insisted Drake did not have any external communication or even any internal communication that could have been passed on. Evidently, our visit left him angry enough to draw an isolation stretch.’
‘How’s that possible? A contract being put out on Nicola Parkinson within hours of you visiting Drake can’t be a coincidence.’
‘That’s precisely what I was thinking. The DG has to have it wrong. Why else would…’ Bliss paused, his train of thought deviating. He saw it then. Saw how they’d been had. ‘The devious cow,’ he whispered.
‘Jimmy?’ Bishop squinted at him.
‘The DG is right. Drake didn’t order a hit on Parkinson.’
‘So who did?’
‘Nobody.’
The room fell into silence for a few seconds, before Chandler said, ‘You want to elaborate on that?’
He nodded. ‘If we’re right, and Nicola Parkinson has been running Drake’s operation in his absence, there has to be a communication pathway between the two of them. He didn’t contact her after we met with him – he did it before we arrived. He wanted to find out why we were driving down there to speak with him, so he contacted her. I’m betting the idea of
