Face Value: A Wright & Tran Novel Page 5

  “You all finished inside? Anything on the computer?”

  “No, nothing. Well, not relating to why they’re missing. It seems Mrs Sterling uses it for recipes, sewing patterns, what looked like scrapbooking, a lot of gardening sites and researching her family history. All of which is quite interesting on its own. It would appear she or her husband, to be honest I couldn’t figure out which, is related to one of the defenders at Rorke’s Drift. Hence the shield, spear and painting I presume. However, one thing I can tell you for certain is that it was the computer the airline tickets were booked on. So, what’s inside here?”

  Kara pushed the workshop door open and allowed her eyes to adjust to the dimmer interior. There were windows along either wall but the ones at the far end of the space had blackout curtains drawn across them. She found the light switch and three long fluorescent tubes lit up, revealing that the space was functionally split into two. Nearest to the door was a compact woodworking area with benches, a vice and an array of saws and planes. At the far end, with the blackout curtains, was what seemed to be a photo studio including backdrops and screens.

  Tien stepped inside and made her way to the far end. “Nice studio setup. Bigger than you’d imagine. I guess half of it was a darkroom at some point.” She raised her camera and began to take photos as she had in the house.

  The two women spent the next half hour methodically searching each space, cupboard and drawer, making their way back up the length of the workshop. Eventually Kara raised a drop-leaf side bench next to the main woodworking area and she and Tien stopped.

  Set into a steel frame and masked from sight by the drop-leaf that had been specifically shaped to conceal it was a three foot tall by two foot wide combination dial safe. As the drop-leaf came horizontal the safe door swung slowly open.

  “That’s a disappointment,” Kara said as the inside was revealed to be completely empty.

  “Still,” Tien said. “That’s a big safe.”

  “Maybe he kept his cameras in here? We haven’t found any trace of them.”

  “True, but a combination safe this size? Bit of over-protection, don’t you think?”

  “I do,” Kara agreed. “Let’s finish the rest.”

  The next double cupboard was also empty.

  “Well I don’t know what it was, but there was definitely something in here,” Tien said. “Look at the discolouration around the edges but not in the middle of the shelves. I reckon at least one of these outlines was a printer.”

  “Right. We’ve got no cameras and no printer. Was there any photo software on the Mac in the study?” asked Kara.

  “Nope.”

  “So we’re probably also missing a laptop or desktop computer?”

  “Yep,” agreed Tien. “But there are no fine tools either. No small screw drivers, no model knives, no small tacks or small hammers. There’s no mounting glue or tape. All the stuff you’d use when framing pictures. Maybe all the little stuff was in whatever was on these other shelves.”

  Kara shrugged and closed the cupboard.

  A half hour later, as the sun was beginning to set into the Bedfordshire countryside, they closed the padlock on the door to the workshop. The last out-building to check was the garage. As Zoe and Michael had told them, Brenda Sterling’s Peugeot 508 Station Wagon was there and Chris Sterling’s Jaguar XFR wasn’t.

  “They must have been doing okay. That Peugeot’s not the cheapest car,” Kara said.

  “Not half as expensive as the missing Jag,” Tien said as she photographed the otherwise empty garage. “Even more so for having personalised plates,” she said referring to the fact that Zoe had been able to recite the YI700N of her father’s registration. With an appropriately placed fastening bolt the plate would read ‘Why-Aye Toon’.

  Kara laughed, “Yeah, but it is only a Newcastle United supporter’s plate. Probably cheap as. Be different if he’d got LFC1.”

  “Oh yeah, sure,” Tien said sarcastically. A life-long Arsenal fan, Tien never missed the chance to tease her friend about supporting Liverpool Football Club. She received a raised finger in response.

  When they were done, Tien locked the house and reset the alarm whilst Kara made a quick call. They met back at their car.

  “According to Zoe the safe was for his cameras but as to what else might have been in it she doesn’t know. He did do all of his photo processing work on his laptop and yes, there was a hi-grade photo-quality printer in the workshop. Michael and she hadn’t realised anything was missing because they never went in to the workshop last week.”

  “Why not?”

  “They don’t have keys for the lock. Apparently their dad keeps them on his keyring.”

  “Kinda strange?” Tien mused.

  “Not really. Apparently he only had the workshop built after he retired from the photography shop, by which time Zoe and Michael weren’t living at home. I suppose there was no reason for them to have keys for it. If there’s a spare set they don’t know where.”

  “Did she ask how we got in?”

  “Yeah but I told her that’s what she was paying us for. Anyway, it confirms we’re missing some things.”

  “But we can’t go to the Police and tell them that it all went missing last Tuesday, can we?” Tien said as she slid into the driver’s seat of the automatic. It was fitted with a steering wheel knob that allowed her single-handed operation of the vehicle.

  Kara glanced over her shoulder and watched the Sterling’s house receding. “Nope, because the cops will say that the cupboards and safe could have been empty for ages. They’ll also tell us that it’s more than likely Mr and Mrs Sterling left for a fly-drive photo tour of the States, taking their camera, laptop and printer with them. Is that what we’re meant to be thinking?”

  Tien nodded, “Yeah, sounds about right. Problem is, I don’t know where we go from here. You’ll need to get me an in to the Heathrow system if we’re going to prove it wasn’t them that flew out. Failing that all we have is nothing. An empty safe and some missing gear.”

  “Let’s hope this woman Wendy Mead comes up with something tomorrow. We’ll need to do some prep in the morning.”

  Chapter 9

  Tuesday Morning. Huntingdon

  DCI Reynolds looked over at his Detective Chief Superintendent and shook his head.

  “No Ma’am. Not a thing. My team interviewed the man who found the body but he’d merely stumbled upon it and we learnt nothing of note. We’ve talked to almost all of Hastings’ normal acquaintances and although that sounds good, it was actually easy to achieve. He had a sheet as long as your arm and was known to us for assaults, domestic violence when he still had a wife, possession, minor supply and major supply. He’d been working his way up the distribution hierarchy of the South Cambs suppliers but then got back into using and quickly worked his way down again.”

  Reynolds paused to allow the DCS to make comment but she just waved for him to go on. She had an unnerving way of staring whilst receiving briefings but Tony had worked for her for long enough to not be fazed by the quirk.

  He continued, “If this had been a simple knife to the head, drug deal gone wrong we’d have a likely list of players to work through. As it is, with Doctor Rowland’s discovery of the real cause of death, we need to start again. None of the usual druggies in the town tend to wear stilettos or be capable of standing upright let alone kicking someone in the head with that amount of force. I’d have said, based on nothing more than instinct, that this could have been a self-defence killing. But in that case I’d have expected to have found lots of DNA left at the scene. Instead, we’ve got nothing. In fact, it was so devoid of traces it almost looked like a professional clean up. There’s nothing that gives any indication of who we’re looking for except for the red paint found in the wounds.”

  Detective Chief Superintendent Laura Mitchell held her hand up and stopped him, “Tony, what if it was a pro-hit? Is there a chance the red shoe is the false lead? Was he clubbed to the head afterwa
rds with a stiletto heel to make it look like a shoe?”

  “According to the secondary tests Doctor Rowlands ran, the wound was delivered with a force equivalent to almost a thousand pounds. It was definitely a kick,” Reynolds hesitated waiting for Mitchell to ask something more but she didn’t. She just looked neutrally at him and waited, so he continued, “The results we got back last night on the paint reveals it’s used on quite literally millions of shoes imported from the Far East. I’ve had a five strong team trying to discover who the assailant is and we’ve had no return. It’s been more than three days now so, I’d like your authority to take a fresh approach. I want to review all the CCTV from Friday night and Saturday morning.”

  “From where?”

  “The whole town.”

  “That’s an immense amount of data surely?” Mitchell said.

  “Yes Ma’am, but the person who did this had to come from somewhere and go to somewhere afterwards. We currently have a body in the light industrial area, where there’s no CCTV coverage and an unknown assailant that seems to have appeared out of nowhere and disappeared back into the same. If we’re going to find them then I need to-”

  Mitchell cut him off with a gentle wave of her hand. “Okay Tony, but the budget is going to be tight on this and whilst I will never acknowledge publically that we shouldn’t be spending time on the death of a known drug user and dealer…” She stopped and merely tilted her head and looked over her glasses at him.

  “Yes Ma’am, understood.”

  “So wrap this up quickly. If it runs over or we get a higher priority then it goes on the back burner and,” she paused before stressing her next word, “if it turns out that it is an upstanding, law-abiding citizen acting in self-defence, then we and the CPS will need to sit down and have a good long talk. Clear?”

  Reynolds was a realist but his detective instinct baulked at the prospect of the case being dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service because it wouldn’t play well in the media. He would need to get the case completely watertight so that they had no option but to proceed. For now, he merely said, “Yes Ma’am.”

  He left Mitchell’s office and returned to the Major Crimes Unit on the fourth floor. Detective Sergeants Gary Mason and Moya Little were waiting for him in the operations room.

  “Did she agree?” Mason asked.

  “Yep, so let’s go get a copy of it all.”

  Mason and Little both pointed towards a cardboard box sitting on the desk behind them.

  “We figured you’d talk her round, so we sent Pop over to Eastfields already.” Little said, referring to the Huntingdonshire District Council’s CCTV control room. “They gave him 51 DVDs. One for each individual camera in the town and they confirmed all of their feeds are in colour nowadays. However, it’s still going to be difficult to accurately see red shoes in the glow cast by the street lights,” she added.

  “So, how do you want to do this Gov?” Mason asked.

  “I think we’ll miss less if we double up,” Reynolds said. “Gary you sit in with Pop, Moya you take John and I’ll go with Anna. According to Doctor Rowlands it was no earlier than eleven on Friday night and no later than five on Saturday morning that Hastings was killed. So we’ll bracket from nine through to seven. Ten hours and seventeen cameras each. I want a quick scan of all the tapes. Mark up any of them that show red high heels or if you can’t determine the colour just a set of heels will do for now. We’ll concentrate on single females only, not groups and not with males and they’ll need to be in the west of the town or heading to it. Once we’ve got a shortlist we’ll reconvene.”

  “Why only singles?” Mason asked.

  “Because I don’t think our Mr Hastings would have approached a couple or a group. I don’t think he was a sociable type.”

  “It still might not be that short a list. We’re going to be covering the chucking out time from every pub and club in Huntingdon. How many of the locals do you think will be wearing heels?” Mason asked.

  “God alone knows but there can’t be many that are capable of inflicting a kick to the head with the force and accuracy that killed Hastings, so that might help us a bit. Anyway, we start by whittling it down and then we go from there. Agreed?” Reynolds looked at both his Sergeants. They smiled and nodded.

  “What are you both smiling at?”

  “You,” Moya said. “You’ve been moping about for the last two days as we got nowhere and now look at you. All happy and enthused about sitting in a video suite to watch hours of CCTV just because you think it might be a lead.”

  Reynolds smirked back at them. “Yeah, well it’s only dampened by knowing I still have you two working for me. Are you actually going to do any work or just take the mickey out of your boss?”

  “Perhaps. C’mon Gary. I suppose the sooner we get started the sooner we make him look good again. Let’s go get him a shortlist,” Moya said and winked over at Mason as she stood.

  Six hours later they were back and pleasantly surprised that their list was very short indeed.

  Chapter 10

  Tuesday Morning. Camden, London

  “Hi Wendy, you don’t know me but I’m David Wright’s sister. I believe you met him at a-”

  “Oh! David,” the woman answered in a voice Kara thought was normally reserved for cute puppies and kittens. Mead continued a little hurriedly, “How is he? I do hope he’s well. Such a nice guy.”

  Kara stopped herself from saying anything smug or cynical. She knew growing up that her brother had obviously been okay looking as he’d had girlfriends, but to be honest she had always thought he had punched way above his weight when Alice agreed to marry him. She definitely knew he was a flirt. She had seen him hold the attention of many a member of female company by talking and laughing with them. But she hadn’t expected him to have had a lasting effect on a fifty-something women he met at a conference five months ago. Saying that, Kara knew Mead had been getting over a break-up at the time, so perhaps David had made an impression simply by being kind and taking an interest in her. He was nice like that.

  Kara bit her lip slightly at the thought that she and Tien’s last ninety minutes of effort might have been superfluous. But on reflection, probably not. Research was never wasted and anyway, she and Tien had routines before a first contact.

  They had arrived in to the office early after a shortened morning run and started doing preliminary background research using Wendy Mead’s prolific social media presence. Starting with her Facebook account, Kara and Tien knew that Wendy was single, fifty-one years old, the eldest of three girls and her two younger sisters were both married and had kids. Wendy had been married and divorced in her thirties with no children from it. She’d had another long term partner but split up from him sometime between summer and Christmas of last year and since then had been single. They knew her full resume from LinkedIn and it was quite impressive. Leaving school at eighteen but not going to university, which Tien thought likely meant she had failed her A-levels, she started work as an administrator for an armoured-van security company. The job was easy and Wendy Mead was obviously a great deal smarter than her probable A-level results gave her credit for. Within five years she was an accounts manager, within ten a senior security manager. The company diversified into fixed point security and Wendy’s career had continued to impress. After twenty-five years she left and formed her own solo security consultancy. She had won a few small jobs over the last eight years including a couple of one-year Government contracts before being the sole consultant commissioned to provide a report into airport procedures.

  That was as far as they had got on LinkedIn but a cross reference to a Government tenders website revealed a little more. Given the relative dates, it was probable that Wendy had won a contract to write a study paper on the ‘Provision of Electronic Scanning Within UK Arrivals’.

  Pinterest had provided a few more clues to the woman’s likes and dislikes, as had Twitter; Mead owned a cat, enjoyed baking, mostly cupcakes, and read his
toric fiction. Her favourite novel was Jane Austin, or so she said and she supported the Coventry Blaze Ice Hockey team. She might also have had a real passion for Rugby Union or as Tien had reckoned, she just collected photos of the New Zealand All-Blacks for aesthetic reasons.

  Kara had formulated an approach that she figured would give her the best chance to get the information she needed. Now, Wendy Mead, with her reaction to the mention of David had, in one sentence, given Kara a completely different angle to work from.

  “Oh he’s very well Wendy, very well. Made me promise to make sure I said hello for him and to tell you he’d been asking after you.”

  “Really, oh how lovely,” Mead giggled in a strangely adolescent way and Kara suppressed more cynical comebacks. “Well,” continued Mead, “that’s just so nice.”

  Kara thought she’d rarely heard someone more genuinely pleased. She decided to lay on a little more flattery. “I really hope you don’t mind but David said that you’d be able to help me. In fact he insisted I ring you when he found out what I was working on. He said that he’d met you at the conference and was blown away by your in-depth knowledge of the whole security field. I do hope you don’t mind him imposing me on you?” Kara said with a hopeful tone.

  “Of course not, no, of course not. Aw, that’s lovely that he thought of me like that,” Mead enthused.

  “I hope I’m not taking too much advantage of your good nature, Wendy?”

  “No, certainly not. So what is it you’re working on and what can I do to help?”

  Kara improvised and adapted her original strategy, “I’m doing some research for a course I’m taking. Apparently I need to get a security qualification because my experience doesn’t count and I keep losing jobs to people with Bachelors and Masters.”

  “That’s just pathetic,” Mead said. “It’s pompous ass graduates who don’t know their way to the toilet by themselves that are the problem.”