Low Profile (19 page)

Henry digested this information, linking it back to Percy's phone call to Lisa:
I've done something really, really stupid
. Henry speculated, ‘Business failing? Does that equate to a bullet in the head? Desperate situation, desperate measures?'

‘Both staff and the books need a close look, I'd say.'

‘Yeah,' Henry agreed, ‘but yet Percy still had time to take Lottie to Florida and the Canaries.'

‘I wonder who will benefit from Percy's death?'

‘Don't yet know. Not found a will or anything that could be construed as a will.'

‘I'll task someone to talk to his solicitor,' Woodcock said.

The discussion continued, the sort of roundabout chat that as an SIO Henry had had on numerous occasions, just generally tossing ideas around. From these discussions, lines of inquiry often emerged that became hypotheses that were investigated, analysed and followed up or discarded – but never forgotten. Even the most unlikely scenarios had to be kept bubbling on the back burner because there was one thing Henry had learned well over the last thirty years of a bumpy career: fact was stranger than fiction, and sometimes even the most outlandish idea could turn out to be the right one.

Henry stood up, suddenly needing to pee – and then grab another coffee. In that order. Woodcock stood up, but Henry stopped at the door and turned to the DCI. ‘You remember that kidnap?'

Woodcock's face changed to an expression Henry thought must have been puzzlement, although for a moment he looked worried.

‘Uh – which one do you mean, boss?'

It was Henry's turn to frown. ‘The tiger kidnap we managed to disrupt; we locked up some serious players.'

‘Yeah, yeah, course,' Woodcock said, relief in his voice.

‘Need to task a couple of good, hard jacks to visit those guys in jail, see what they have to say about Percy's death.'

‘Retribution, you mean?'

Henry nodded. ‘I've known people murdered for less. The fact we managed to prevent it happening might still rankle with some folk.'

‘I'll get Bob Wade and Trevor Taylor to find out which prison these guys are in and follow it up.'

‘Yeah – they sound just the right sort … and on that note …' Henry said, his bladder urging him to move quickly. But he stopped again and said, ‘I really need to have an in-depth with my sister, too. She went out with Percy for a while and she might be able to tell us some things about his lifestyle. Problem is she's in Lanzarote until the middle of next week.'

‘Nice jolly for the boss?' Woodcock suggested.

‘Mm … however, need a pee.'

Woodcock sourced some excellent coffee and by the time Henry returned from the loo a hot mug of medium roast was waiting for him. He thanked Woodcock profusely and sipped the coffee as he meandered around the MIR. Two HOLMES 2 terminals were up and running, staffed by specially trained personnel who had been brought in from their usual places of work to input the data that was starting to arrive as the investigation got rolling. Henry chatted to them – two ladies who worked in admin at Blackpool nick. Then he moved on to the office manager, an experienced DS, tasked with the smooth running of the room; then he went on to the allocator and exhibits officer. The jobs were still allocated by hand, recorded on triplicate forms, one of which went on file, one to the officer(s) doing whatever the job was and one to the HOLMES 2 operators for inputting into the system.

There was already a binder half full of tasks and Henry had a quick sift through them just to get a feel for what was happening. He was reasonably happy with the way it was going so far, but things could never really move quickly enough for him. He hated being one pace behind a killer.

Next he moved on to check the timeline that had been posted on the wall, basically four sheets of flipchart paper, A3 size, turned to ‘landscape' and stuck on the wall. A black line – literally the timeline – was drawn with a thick felt tip right from one end to the other, across the middle of the paper. At its central point was a cross and a time and a date – the moment Percy had phoned Lisa.

The next point along the line marked where Lisa had called Henry and the next one indicated where Henry himself had visited Percy's house, disturbed the killer and then gone sailing.

Henry moved on and looked at his e-fit of the murderer. He looked at it for a long time, wondering if he'd done a good enough job of it.

He had.

There was also an e-fit of a full length portrait of the killer wearing his forensic suit, although Henry doubted it was much use unless he used it as everyday attire.

On the wall opposite were photographs of the crime scene and Henry spent some time looking at these dreadful images, sad at two unnecessary and brutal deaths.

He had reached the bottom of his coffee. He wandered back to his office and sat for a while doing what superintendents do best: thinking, hoping he was doing enough to cover his arse.

He hoped he had the most important things covered and racked his brain to see if he could tease something out he had missed. He rocked forward and stood up, pulling his jacket off the back of the chair and on to his own back.

As much as he would have liked to be out and about, knocking on doors – or preferably kicking them down – he knew he had to go back and revisit the relatives of the two murder victims and let them know the results of the post mortems, another of those tasks the SIO had to take on, although Henry knew a few who happily delegated this to others.

Stepping into the MIR he called across to Woodcock, who was writing at one of the desks.

‘Pete – I'm off to visit the parents again, bring 'em up to speed with where it's at … I'll do Lottie's first.'

‘Oh, OK … I could do Archie if you wanted?'

Henry shook his head, already on his way out. ‘No, my job, I'll sort it,' he called over his shoulder, ‘after which I'm back to the crime scene.'

Lottie's family was in deep mourning.

The atmosphere in the house was very grave and Henry felt like an intruder, even though a family liaison officer (FLO) was present, a young police woman who was acting as a conduit between the family and police, but also as an evidence gatherer. Henry chatted to her first and, although she had been well trained to take on the role, she was still inexperienced and just a little tearful. The family's grief had rubbed off on her.

Henry then spoke to Lottie's father, this time in the kitchen. He looked to have aged significantly overnight. His eyes were expectant and fearful; the thought of what his daughter's body had just undergone was terrifying his imagination. Butchered on a slab.

‘It was as we expected,' Henry said, knowing that the best way through all this was for him to be honest and direct. A ‘cruel to be kind' scenario. ‘Lottie had been shot through the head, twice. She must have died instantly, as the trauma to the brain from either round would have killed her outright.'

The father said, ‘You were present … at the post mortem?'

‘Yes I was.'

He looked at Henry, nonplussed, trying to form words. ‘Was she … I mean …?'

‘She was treated with dignity and compassion,' Henry assured him.

‘OK, OK,' he murmured, this seeming to answer his unspoken question.

‘She would not have suffered,' Henry said, referring to her death.

‘Except in the time leading up to her death,' the father said. ‘Then she would have been terrified beyond belief.'

‘Yes,' Henry said, ‘she would have. I can't deny that.'

The man nodded.

‘I'm so sorry, but I will get him. Now, Mr Bowers, if it's all right with you, while I'm here I'd like to take the opportunity to have a look through Lottie's things, if I may? Up in her room. Just a glance for the moment, but I'd like you to give me permission to take away anything I feel might assist the investigation. I will send someone around a little later to do a more thorough job, though.'

‘You have my permission. There's nothing to hide, so take what you need.'

There wasn't much, as far as Henry could see. Her bedroom was fairly typical of a single young woman's, he guessed, still living at home.

Some traces of childhood and teenage years – a doll, a poster of a pop star – but mostly just a modern feminine looking room. Three-quarter size bed, nice self-assembled furniture, a desk, dressing table, TV and laptop. He would let someone else seize the laptop.

‘This is it,' her father announced, looking into the room over Henry's shoulder, then backing away quickly, overcome with emotion. ‘I'll leave it to you,' he said in a voice that sounded tearful.

‘Thank you.'

Henry stepped in and closed the door, entering the world of Charlotte – Lottie – Bowers, feeling a bit like a burglar.

As if he was at a crime scene, he jammed his hands into his pockets and simply stood there, taking it all in, letting his eyes do the walking, trying to imagine her there. Back home after a failed marriage, would she still have the same habits as always? Would she keep a diary? Looking at her laptop on the desk, Henry guessed she would be social media savvy, would have Facebook and Twitter accounts, probably. Would have e-mail and could well have other accounts, such as Instagram, maybe. They would all need checking.

Nightmare, Henry thought. Social media sux.

He sat on the tiny office chair at the desk and looked at it. Perfume bottles, nail polishes, nail polish remover … a photo of her and some of her friends in a ‘Forever Friends' photo frame. A photo of her and Percy stuck on the wall with Blu-tack, looking all loved up.

Henry didn't touch it, but looked closely at it.

Percy was quite a bit older than her – into his forties – and he'd been quite a bit younger than Lisa, maybe ten years either way. He'd been a toy boy in one relationship and a cradle snatcher in another, even though Lottie was in her thirties.

But they looked like a good couple, a good fit, nothing out of place about them.

Henry's eyes scanned the desk and behind one of the photo frames he saw a small digital camera. He dragged it towards him, then switched it on.

He wasn't great with new technology, but even he could manage to find his way around a digital camera and soon started to flick through the photographs stored on it, starting with the most recent first, then going backwards in time.

The first of the photos were of her and Percy, a vast array of those ‘couple' photos taken when they hug each other and one or the other of them, arm extended, takes the picture. Lots of smiles and laughing. Having a great time photos.

Then Henry came across a few photographs of a fishing boat … he thought the type of boat he was looking at was called a sportfisher, but couldn't be certain. He had no great knowledge of anything maritime, as his excursion into Morecambe Bay had adequately demonstrated. And he liked to be fishing with his feet firmly on the ground.

Quite a few of the shots were of a marina which looked very nice, crowded with row upon row of very sleek, expensive looking power boats and sportfishers. The whole place looked extremely plush and wealthy.

He went through the photographs slowly.

A few were of Percy and Lottie, arms around each other, on the deck of a fishing boat – Henry now knew it was a fishing boat, because he could see fishing rods stacked up … sometimes he amazed himself that he could put such clues together. And quite a few of these photos were obviously taken by a third person.

There were more photos of the boat itself, one of which was taken from the quayside where the boat was moored. It showed the back end of the boat and its name emblazoned across it and its port of origin.

The boat was called
Silverfin
and the port was Key West.

So the trip to Florida the couple had taken, Henry put together brilliantly, was to do some sea fishing. Did they catch marlin and huge tuna fish from Key West, Henry half-recalled? He had studied Hemingway at school and seemed to think that the writer had lived in Key West at some stage in his life and had owned a fishing boat there.

Percy did not strike Henry as being an angler.

Maybe it had been one of those secret ambitions but, if the business was floundering, wasn't it a bit of an extravagance to zip over to Florida to treat his girlfriend to some deep sea fishing? Henry sighed and continued to flick through the photos, then stopped at one and peered at it.

He knew enough about digital cameras to be able to focus in on sections of the screen and enlarge them.

The photograph that had piqued his interest was the only one so far in which there was someone else other than the couple. It was a shot of Lottie standing on the deck of
Silverfin
and behind her was the cockpit of the boat with the wheel and the instrument panel behind it.

Bending over and giving a shadowy profile to the camera was a man dressed in a T-shirt and shorts, a baseball cap on his head.

He looked familiar.

Henry angled his head at the camera and peered closely at him. The photo wasn't all that clear, he was just a guy in the background behind Lottie, in the darkness of the cockpit, not focused on, just the usual collateral damage in an innocent photograph. Probably a crew member.

Yet … he looked familiar to Henry, although he knew this could not be the case. Henry simply did not know anyone in Florida. Full stop. Yet … he tried to enlarge it again, but it didn't seem to help.

Frustrated, Henry flicked the button so the screen returned to normal, and in the corner of the same photograph he saw the edge of what looked very much like a bicycle wheel, which also seemed slightly odd. He didn't get time to ponder as his mobile phone rang and he answered it immediately, not checking the caller ID, still looking at the photograph of Lottie's happy face.

‘Henry Christie,' he said.

‘Henry – where the hell are you?' It was DCI Pete Woodcock, his voice sounding urgent, and Henry could hear footfalls and heavy breathing.