Blood Money (12 page)

‘Among other things. Christ, if they’re involved we’re into a whole different ball game. Why the hell didn’t Klinnemann tell us that?’

Millie looked shaken. ‘Perhaps he didn’t want to consider it a possibility.’

‘More fool him. He leads a research team. He’s a prime target.’

‘If it is them, they’ll have done their preparation. Someone will have found out that Emma O’Brien was coming here today and would have recced the nursery in advance.’

‘It’s possible. There are active cells of animal rights all over the country who gather intelligence and communicate via the Internet. It would be a big operation, but they are highly organised and something could have been set up. The nursery has the crèche contract with the hospital and details of the children using the facility are passed on. Someone there could have easily made the link. It might be worth checking if Jimmy Bond has any leanings in that direction, too.’

It added a whole layer of further work to be done. ‘Someone could do with identifying any likely candidates here, and I’ll add that to the list of things to ask them in Cambridge.’

 

Mariner returned to his office to make the call to Cambridgeshire police himself. DI Ruth Tunstall had been nominated to liaise with him and Mariner was pleased to pick up the professional tone at the other end of the line. Ruth knew the family from previous involvement and had already made it her business to have the paperwork available. Even so, he was surprised at the level of detail.

‘Peter Klinnemann left his wife Mary last October, when Emma O’Brien was two months pregnant,’ she told him. ‘Mary took it very badly and was hellbent on revenge. It was all good bunny-boiling stuff, but nothing terribly original. Peter initially moved into Emma’s flat in Cambridge. Mary followed him there and on several occasions subsequently we were called out to disturbances; mostly Mary standing in the street below shouting abuse at them both, sometimes throwing fruit and eggs at the windows. On one occasion she dumped all Peter’s clothes outside Emma’s flat in black bin bags. It seemed perfectly reasonable until he opened up the bags and found his best suits and shirts liberally seasoned with tomato ketchup and HP sauce.’

‘Ouch,’ said Mariner.

‘Quite. Mary also admitted to making nuisance calls to Emma O’Brien at home and at work and there were instances of vandalism to their cars, all of it cosmetic - lipstick on the windscreen, a knife in the tyres. It wasn’t so much the seriousness of the attacks as the persistence and in the end Peter Klinnemann was forced to take out an injunction against her.’

‘And has it worked?’

‘Yes. I mean this all happened months ago, and Mary’s been pretty quiet since. I’ve been keeping an eye on her too. We’ve talked a lot and she seems to listen to me.’

Mariner wasn’t surprised. Ruth Tunstall seemed the kind of person who would elicit confidences. ‘When did you last see her?’

‘I’ve just come from her house - their house as I suppose it technically still is. You can rest assured that if Mary is in any way involved it’s not in the front line, and I would doubt that she has anything to do with it. I don’t think she’s particularly sorry that it’s happened but neither is she up to organising anything like it. She’s on anti-depressants and pretty spaced out.’

‘What about the children?’

‘Lisbet is lovely. She lives away from home now, up in Peterborough, but she’s been spending a lot of time with her mum. She’s been very supportive.’

‘And Paul?’

Ruth Tunstall began to measure her words carefully. ‘Paul is different,’ she said. ‘The whole business has hit him a lot harder. He was pretty angry with his dad.’

Mariner sensed she was holding back. ‘And?’

‘Look, don’t read too much into this, but Paul has had his problems in the past. About three years ago he was cautioned for possession of cannabis and he moved from that to the stronger stuff. I think he’s clean at the moment but his dad’s activities haven’t exactly helped the healing process.’

‘Christ. He has a drug habit? Even if he’s not behind this, someone could be using him to get at his father. He wasn’t at home this evening?’

‘No, but as I said, that isn’t unusual. He’s away at university - UCL - he may well have gone back a bit early.’

‘His father tried to contact him earlier today, but his phone was switched off.’

‘Do you want me to see if I can track him down?’

‘I want to know where he is,’ said Mariner.

‘Of course, I’ll talk to Mary and see if she has any ideas.’

‘And any close friends.’

‘Sure. But if you want my honest opinion, I can’t imagine that either of the kids would be caught up in this. Okay, they were angry with their father, but they wouldn’t want to hurt him.’

‘What do you know about Klinnemann’s finances?’

‘Nothing specific. Naturally Mary is threatening to screw him for everything he’s got, and so far she’s hung on to the house and the Freelander. Emma O’Brien sold her flat and the happy couple have moved into a place in Witham, a village just outside the city.’

‘What sort of place is it?’

‘Compared with the family home it’s a pretty modest little cottage, but no property in or around Cambridge is ever cheap.’

‘How much longer has Paul Klinnemann got at uni?’

‘He’s in his final year. You know where Peter Klinnemann works?’

‘We do now, but only because one of the local hacks found out ahead of us. Klinnemann didn’t see fit to mention it. We’ll need to know if there’s been any activity with cells in your area.’

‘I’ve got a couple of people working on it already. They’ll be making a few house calls. There’s nothing yet, but I’ll keep you posted.’

‘Thanks.’

‘And good luck. This is the sort of case none of us wants landed on us.’

Thanking Tunstall again, Mariner rang off.

Following the press conference, the phones in the incident room were red hot. Specially trained officers had been brought in to answer them, weeding out the calls they thought might be significant. Tony Knox was overseeing the evidence gathering process.

‘How’s the house to house doing?’ Mariner asked him.

‘No one saw anything at that time of day. Most people were out at work or picking up kids from school. One lead though. One of the bus drivers on that route has come forward. He drove past at about two forty. He didn’t pick anyone up, but he did stop to allow a woman who was carrying a baby in a car seat to cross the road. It’s about the right time and what little he could remember about her appearance fits with what we’ve already got.’

‘So from that we can gather that she parked, or had transport waiting up at the hospital.’

‘Looks like it, boss. We’ve also isolated what we think is the relevant CCTV footage. And there’s another possible sighting by one of the site workmen of a woman struggling to carry the seat up the hill towards the main hospital car park. He noticed her because she was making heavy weather of it, switching from one arm to the other. He remembered thinking that the poor baby was getting a rough ride.’ Knox took Mariner over to a map of the area that was pinned to the wall beside the whiteboard. ‘It’s most likely that she was going up to the south car park, here.’ He traced the route with an index finger. ‘It’s the nearest one to the nursery.’ Coloured spot stickers littered the map, marking the position of the cameras, but there wasn’t one here. ‘It’s a new car park and they haven’t finished installing the system yet, but the building site where the brickie was working, over here, has footage, so we’ve concentrated on the vehicles they picked up coming down the exit ramp at around that time. Do you want to see it?’

‘Let’s give it a look.’

‘Okay. This is the action between two thirty and three thirty. I can’t imagine she’d have wanted to hang around here any longer than necessary.’ Knox played the video, fast forwarding though the quiet patches. ‘This is what we’ve got starting at half past two.’

Mariner stared at the video. For several seconds nothing happened then a dark car proceeded down the ramp, turned into the road and drove off to the right towards the main road. From then on the exiting traffic was intermittent, a couple of cars every minute or so. All the vehicles would need to be traced. The quality of the film was disappointing; grainy and indistinct, and the camera angle meant that apart from a split second before each car rounded the corner, the registration numbers were not in view. It was difficult at first glance even to ascertain the makes of the cars. But Mariner said nothing. The tech team he knew would be able to work wonders with enhancement and may well be able to come up with something.

Meanwhile they could appeal to anyone who may have been in the car park at that time and saw a woman and baby getting into a vehicle, but again they were relying on members of the public to come forward, which took up precious time. Something that they couldn’t really afford.

‘That’s good work,’ Mariner said. ‘But we really need to identify what vehicle she got into, or we’re stuffed. Linking her to a car is the only chance we have of finding out where she went. Anything else?’

‘We’ve talked to the folks Emma O’Brien stayed with last night. They’re old college friends apparently, both of them now doctors. According to them they may have mentioned to a couple of people in the last few days that Emma was coming to stay, but they claim not to have spoken to anyone about the arrangements for Jessica. They didn’t even seem to know anything about the nursery, only that it’s a crèche connected to the hospital, so I’m inclined to believe them.’

‘Okay, that makes sense. I can’t think what they’d have to gain from this. I think we can safely leave them out of it for now.’ But there were more uncomfortable questions he’d have to ask Peter Klinnemann.

DCI Sharp burst into the office, carrying a portable radio, which she plugged in and switched on. ‘You may want to hear this, Tom.’

The programme she’d tuned in to was a late night radio phone-in. It took Mariner only seconds to recognise Marcella Turner’s voice. ‘This was a tragedy waiting to happen,’ she was saying. ‘Babies and young children get dumped in places like this for hours on end, the young girls responsible for their welfare barely out of school themselves, without the faintest clue how to care for them.’

‘But surely nurseries provide a valuable service for working parents,’ the presenter countered.

‘Exactly; it provides a service for the
parents
. No one ever considers the effect it might be having on the child. What this government is doing is reinforcing a culture of “children as accessories”, encouraging couples to have children without the inconvenience of having to raise them. Hand them over to someone else to bring up and make them someone else’s responsibility. No wonder the family unit is disintegrating.’

‘So what would you suggest, Ms Turner?’

‘That women are given a genuine choice; the mother’s role is fully recognised and that women are paid a decent wage for staying at home and looking after their children. And that these glorified baby farms are closed down.’

‘Is that all?’ commented someone drily.

‘Someone get me some more background on her,’ said Mariner, to no one special.

 

Mariner had been putting it off, mainly because he didn’t want to face Anna’s disappointment, but suddenly he found himself at a loose end and could find no further excuse within himself. If he left it much later she’d be in bed. She picked up on the first ring.

‘I’m really sorry about the holiday,’ Mariner began.

‘I know. It can’t be helped.’ Now that she’d had time to think about it, she was philosophical, her voice unemotional. ‘I can’t imagine what those poor parents are going through, but if I was in their shoes I’d want you out there looking for baby Jessica, too.’

‘I don’t deserve you,’ Mariner said.

‘You’re right about that. Something you’d do well to remember sometimes.’ But it was said with a hint of playfulness. ‘Has there been a breakthrough? Is that why you’re calling?’

‘I wish. No. I just wanted to check in. I can’t do anything about this. You do understand that?’

‘Of course. It’s just - I was just so looking forward to you finally meeting everyone down there.’

‘I will. This situation could end at any time.’

‘What are baby Jessica’s chances?’ she asked.

‘I really don’t know. It’s certainly putting me off the idea of nursery day care,’ Mariner said. ‘What’s the point of having children if you’re not going to look after them?’

‘I agree. So how long will you be taking?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘How many years paternity leave will you get?’ Unable to see her face Mariner couldn’t tell if she was joking or not. ‘I mean, if we’re not going to put the baby in a nursery, one of us will need to stay at home with him,’ she continued. ‘Are you assuming it will be me, just when my career is picking up and getting interesting again? Have you any idea what another break would mean?’