Everyone Lies (7 page)

She holds his gaze, but only for a second. ‘Clear, Frank.’

Sol and Rob are in the office. Rob turns as Marta comes in, gives her the once-over. The dressing gown she threw on so that she could see Trevor out is very short and cut very low, yet it’s only Rob’s gaze that makes her feel dirty.

Sol eyes her appreciatively and Frank gives him a sharp look. Then he closes the door, and for a moment all of the men regard her.

‘Can I do anything for you, gentlemen?’ The innuendo is intentional, automatic, and – importantly – it’s what they expect.

‘Maybe.’

Frank sits behind the desk, and Rob positions himself by the filing cabinet to her left, props one elbow on it and rests his chin on his fist. Sol remains standing. The brothers have an instinct, like wolves: they know at any moment in a situation which of them should take the lead. This time, it’s Sol’s turn.

‘There’s a new parlour down the road. Some of the girls have been moonlighting.’

Marta looks from Sol to Frank. ‘Not me.’

‘
Woof
!’ Rob laughs. ‘Defensive.’

‘We’ve heard the girls like it there,’ Frank says. ‘Giselle has missed her Wednesday session here …’ He checks the rota in front of him. ‘Three weeks in a row, and the other girls … well, they seem restless.’

This is what they do, she thinks: they call you in and make observations, instead of asking a direct question or making an accusation you can easily deny. So you end up guessing what they know, sweating over the lies you’ve already told, in case they’ve found you out, and of course you say the wrong thing, prove yourself a liar. She keeps her head up, but avoids his gaze.

Sol sits on the edge of the desk, his legs stretched out in front of him. ‘I’ll be straight with you, Marta – we’re losing custom. Now, normally Rob would take care of that. Rob’s got contacts, connections. He knows people who can make problems go away.’

Rob-the-fixer smiles to himself, looks into her face to see if she’s impressed, but his eyes keep drifting to her breasts. She wants to know more about Rob’s contacts, and what he’s going to fix for the boys, but Sol and Frank are suspicious of people who ask questions. That’s all right – she’s patient; she can wait – it’s not by accident that they have given her this new information; it’s a sign that they trust her.

‘The owner, George Howard, is an accountant,’ Sol goes on, as if he’s addressing a seminar. ‘In the Audit Commission, or was, before he got restructured in the bonfire of the quangos, and you know what that means.’

Marta is not even sure what a quango is, but thankfully, he doesn’t wait for an answer.

‘He’s a bean-counter. Worse, he’s a
government
bean-counter. He just doesn’t have the kind of history that Rob can use. He’s getting annoying,’ Sol says. ‘And he won’t agree to a private sit-down to sort it. So we’ve negotiated a compromise: we meet in public, at a bar of his choosing in the city centre. We talk, you join us, you leave with him, work your Mata Hari magic.’ He grins, spreading his hands, as if to say,
What could be simpler?

She feels a stab of alarm, seeing where this is going. ‘But I like it
here
,’ she says.

‘Very heart-warming,’ Frank says. ‘But he didn’t say you’d have to work for Howard exclusive, did he?’ It’s a reprimand. Not a warning, so far, but a reminder that Frank hates interruptions.

She arches an eyebrow and folds her arms, because he also despises weakness, and a fearful woman is weak. ‘Okay …’

‘It’ll take a while,’ Sol says. ‘Don’t worry about that. Take your time, get it right. We just want some inside info so we can persuade him not to expand into other areas of supply. You can carry on working here, see him on your evenings off.’ They can’t know that her evenings off are fully occupied.

‘You think of everything,’ she says. ‘Except how I can get paid – I mean, if I’m working in his parlour, I can’t ask this George Howard to pay me for … um … entertaining him. And this
is
business.’

Sol laughs softly, and he and Frank exchange a look; she knows they will already have considered this. ‘How does standard hourly rate sound?’ Sol asks.

She purses her lips. ‘This is not standard work.’

Rob works his tongue around his front teeth, but he doesn’t speak.

Sol cocks an eyebrow at her. ‘You’re a cheeky mare.’ He looks at his brother like he’s asking for confirmation. She doesn’t see a nod or even a flicker of the eyelids – maybe it’s the wolf-pack telepathy – but something passes between them, and Sol says, ‘Fifteen per cent over the odds.’

‘And a bonus for any useful information of course,’ Frank adds smoothly.

‘Let me think about it,’ she says, although she is already rearranging her schedule in her head.

Frank’s eyes begin to harden, but he seems to decide to give her some leeway. ‘Well, don’t take too long over it, eh? We’re losing money.’

7

‘It is the nature of an hypothesis, when once a man has conceived it, that it assimilates every thing to itself, as proper nourishment; and, from the first moment of your begetting it, it generally grows the stronger by every thing you see, hear, read, or understand.’

LAURENCE STERNE, TRISTRAM SHANDY

Fennimore set up a link in the video-conferencing centre in the computer suite. The facility was housed in a windowless room which had Skype access via a webcam: a smooth black egg-shaped device above the digital projector screen with a lens wide enough to accommodate up to ten around the conference table which ran the length of the room. Fennimore sat at the head with Josh Brown seated to his right. The room smelled of new wood and warm electronics.

Fennimore clicked the Skype link and seconds later Kate Simms’s face appeared on the screen.

Four years ago, Simms’s brown hair was straight and glossy and hung to her shoulders. Now, it was almost as short as Josh’s – though she was anything but androgynous. Her eyes were light brown and long-lashed, and she had a face that most women would remortgage the house for. Fennimore shifted his gaze from her face to the webcam. ‘Kate – you cut your hair.’

‘Hello, Nick,’ she said, her voice warm, amused, gently chiding. ‘Who’s your friend?’

He had forgotten Josh in his shock at seeing her. ‘Josh, this is Detective Chief Inspector Simms. Kate, this is Josh Brown. He’s not a friend – he’s a PhD student. I’ve enlisted his help.’

‘You’ll learn to forgive his rudeness,’ she said, smiling in the general direction of the student, not quite finding the line of sight. ‘The professor’s social graces got stunted by his passion for scientific accuracy.’

Josh sat side-on to the webcam, frowning at the blank screen of his laptop, which stood open on the table in front of him. ‘Not a problem,’ he said.

She maintained her focus on the student. Fennimore had spent an hour going over the stats with Josh again; the student had argued, challenged, disputed and recalculated every step. Now, watching him shift uncomfortably, avoiding the blind gaze of a woman 350 miles away, Fennimore was reminded again of the student’s almost pathological reserve.

‘Before we begin, let’s get this straight, Josh,’ Simms said. ‘None of this is for general discussion, understood?’

‘Understood.’

‘Look at me, Josh.’

He did, but his gaze slid quickly back to his computer.

‘Nothing – I mean not so much as a
gnat’s fart
of this – gets out to your friends, your drinking buddies, e-buddies or girlfriends. If I see one word of this on the Web—’

‘Woah.’ The student’s awkwardness vanished; he sat up and stared into the webcam. ‘You’ve got an investigation to protect – fine, I get that – so yeah, let’s be straight. I don’t text, I don’t tweet, I’m not on Facebook – or any other social network for that matter – and I don’t have a girlfriend. I study. I eat. I sleep. But mostly I study.’

Fennimore heard the slight harshness in the vowel sounds again, like a whiff of salt air and sea asters from the Essex marshes. He sat back and watched his friend assess this young stranger through the distorting lens of digitization and distance. After a few moments she said, ‘So, what’s the verdict?’

‘The first thing we had to establish was whether the data’s solid, or an artefact.’

‘Which is it?’

‘I’ve analyzed data for the past five years of quarterlies and compared them with the figures you gave me from the Crime Pattern Analysis Unit – straight stats, based on actual numbers of overdoses – and aside from a small blip four years ago caused by a batch of particularly strong heroin, the figures are remarkably consistent, until the last three quarters, that is, when the rate goes up, and stays up.

‘Now, as you get more deaths over the norm, it’s less and less likely that your excess deaths are just a wee blip and you have
thirteen
deaths over the expected norm—’

‘I know this, Nick,’ she broke in. ‘I
gave
you the numbers – just tell me, are they real?’

He folded his arms. ‘Any plod with a GCSE in maths could tell you the numbers seem a bit high. But you want something you can quote with confidence, and I can’t give you that without the stats.’

She took a breath and exhaled slowly. ‘You’re right, I’m sorry, I need the stats.’ Before he could accept her apology she added smoothly, ‘Just skip the lecture, okay?’

He smiled. ‘Okay. In simple statistical terms, I am 95 per cent certain these deaths are significantly above what you would expect.’

‘So the CPA Unit was right,’ she said. ‘They’re real.’

‘Really real,’ Fennimore said.

She didn’t speak.

‘You don’t seem overjoyed.’

‘Did you watch the news?’

He nodded. ‘I thought you put your case very well. All that stuff about clusters happening by chance, the function of the review process, the futility of speculation – really, it was bang on the money.’

‘Thank you.’

It was also, almost word for word, a little lecture he’d given her when they worked together at the National Crime Faculty, but now didn’t seem a good time to mention it, and Simms went on:

‘Funnily enough, nobody quoted me on that. They did quote Evette Lyons extensively, though: “Police incompetence,” she said. We ignored the real threats against her daughter “while we dicked about with our computer spreadsheets”.’

‘Does she think you should ignore the other victims just because her daughter happens to be in the news?’ Fennimore said. ‘Come on, Kate, she’s bound to blame the police – she can’t very well blame herself, can she? She’s talking crap.’

‘And as a smart-arsed scientist you probably know the adhesion co-efficient. Me, I’m just a thick-headed cop, but I do know shit sticks, and Stuart G—’ She checked herself, glanced at Josh Brown. ‘
My bosses
won’t want to blame themselves, either.’

‘Stuart Gifford is a bureaucrat—’

Another quick glance towards Josh. ‘For
God’s sake
, Nick.’

‘What? You think names should be changed to protect the stupid? Gifford might be a pillock who was born with a pencil up his arse, but even he wouldn’t be so vindictive.’

She pinched the bridge of her nose and took a moment, then spoke slowly and clearly. ‘Gifford is interested in two things: The Rules, and Gifford. He’s been in post for a month – not even long enough to tack his family photos up on his office wall. He will not take the fall for this and, conveniently, his least favourite police officer happens to be standing on a narrow ledge hanging on by her toenails.’ She pushed her fingers through her hair, laced them on top of her head and left them there like she was trying to keep her brains from bursting right through her skull.

Watching her, frowning hard, looking inward, fighting to keep it together, Fennimore felt a tidal wave of shame. ‘Kate—’

She raised a finger. ‘No. Do not do that. Don’t you
dare
feel sorry for me.’

Josh busied himself with his laptop, pretending he couldn’t hear them.

‘I don’t,’ Fennimore said, keeping his gaze on her. ‘But I do want to help.’

‘I got a call from the
Mirror
twenty minutes ago,’ Simms said. ‘Tomorrow, they’re running the front-page headline “STAYC MURDERED?”. They wanted a reaction quote. Now, I could remind them that StayC died in her own bed in her mother’s house, while her mother was downstairs watching
Hollyoaks
on TV. But they’d only say that where she died is irrelevant, because someone might have put something in her heroin before she bought it. I’m in a real bind here, Nick.’

‘Well … StayC’s death does look like it’s part of a pattern, rather than a one-off, and as one of thirteen drugs deaths above the norm, it’s far less likely she was murdered.’

‘
Less likely
, but you can’t rule it out. Look at it from the other end of the telescope – it’s probable her death is linked to
twelve
others.’ She peered at him. ‘And that makes a much more interesting article.’

He shrugged. ‘I’m sorry, Kate, I can’t do any better than that until we’ve re-examined the evidence, and that means going back to the beginning, looking at it all over again. I can do that with you if it helps?’

She hesitated, but he could see her thinking it through, and after a few seconds she gave a nod of acceptance.

‘Who’ve you got working with you?’ he asked.

She gave him a cynical smile. ‘According to the press release, “a dedicated team of officers”. In reality, there’s me, two Crime Pattern Analysts and a Scientific Advisor – and it’s just me working on it full time.’

‘We’d better get started then, hadn’t we?’ He turned to Josh. ‘For context, the import of illicit drugs to the UK is estimated at between four and six billion pounds per annum.’ The student’s fingers rustled over the keyboard, typing as Fennimore spoke. ‘Factor in the fifteen billion spent on crime and health costs every year, and you have an industry worth twenty-one billion – which is 25 per cent more than legitimate pharmaceutical companies made in exports last year.’

Nick Fennimore knew all of this because it was his job to know, and because some numbers just stuck. There were some he couldn’t budge, like how many children are abducted every year – between six hundred and a thousand; like the average age of an abducted child – ten; like the number still missing and unaccounted for – around two hundred. His daughter was ten at the time she disappeared, and, five years on, she remained one of the two hundred who stayed missing. It made him weak to think of Suzie among those two hundred children, frightened and alone – or worse – in the hands of monsters. Nick Fennimore, scientist, logician, did believe in monsters. Not the fairy-tale kind that were easy to spot, so you could point them out and keep your children from harm – the monsters of his nightmares walked on two legs, and spoke like you and me, and called themselves men.