Price to Pay, A (4 page)

‘We appreciate you giving us your time, Philip,’ O’Dowd said, taking one of the seats opposite him.

The student glanced at Iona again as she settled into the other chair.

O’Dowd pointed at the small camera mounted in the ceiling above them. ‘I’ll need to record this conversation, I hope that’s all right.’

Philip glanced up. ‘Um … yes. I signed a statement for the officers at the other station already—’

‘I know. I have it here.’ O’Dowd nodded.

His eyes went to Iona yet again. ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled. ‘But you look really like the photo of that girl …’

Of course, Iona realized. That’s why he keeps giving me the eye. ‘Yes, sorry if that threw you. You’re not the first person to notice.’

He was frowning. ‘Are you going to be doing one of those reconstruction things? Playing her part in it?’

She wondered if he realized where he was: detectives in the Counter Terrorism Unit would never appear on the telly. ‘No, a professional actress would probably be recruited for that.’

‘Oh.’

O’Dowd sat forward. ‘We’d just like to talk you through a couple of things. I realize it might seem like you’re being taken over the same old ground.’

As Philip folded the paper over, Iona could see its corners were trembling. He’d been having a go at the Sudoku puzzle. She reached out and rotated the paper round. The bottom row was partly filled in, as was the right-hand corner. She stared at the numbers, feeling her brain starting to whirr. It had always been this way for her with numbers; they were like a language she had always been able to speak. ‘Is that a five you need? Third from the left.’

He cocked his head. ‘Five? I don’t know, is it?’

‘I reckon, because that means the one four across is an eight, so then you can put a three in the corner box.’

He spent a few seconds checking Iona’s calculations. While his head was bowed, Iona gave O’Dowd a quick wink.

‘Oh, yeah.’ Philip looked at her with a mixture of awe and intrigue. ‘Are you … like a technician or something?’

‘No, just a normal detective. Old habits die hard – we always did the puzzles in my student house.’

He leaned back a bit. ‘Where did you go?’

‘Newcastle. Maths.’

‘Maths? Me, too.’

‘Yeah, my boss mentioned. And you’re a third year?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Which modules have you gone for?’

‘I want to be an actuary. Mainly, I’m doing stats. A bit of Option Pricing Theory.’

Iona couldn’t imagine applying the beauty of maths to something so boring as finance. ‘Fair enough.’

‘And you?’

‘Me? I just stuck with pure maths – number theory was a favourite.’

‘So, how do you end up in the police with a maths degree?’

‘Oh, they’ll take anyone,’ she smiled.

‘I can tell you, Iona here is a rising star. A real asset.’ O’Dowd’s clunky interjection brought the conversation’s flow to a stop.

Iona saw Philip blink uneasily. ‘So, this laptop.’ She waved a hand at the sheets O’Dowd had placed on the coffee table. ‘Very nice bit of kit. With an Intel i7 processor, too.’

‘Yeah.’ Philip sounded wistful. ‘Top notch. I suppose it’s in bits now?’

O’Dowd crossed his legs. ‘I’m not sure. They won’t be using a hammer on it, though.’

‘You mean, I might get it back?’

‘Well, no. Not if it’s stolen property.’

He sighed. ‘Which – let’s face it – it probably is.’

‘I’ve not seen it up close,’ Iona said. ‘Were there any markings on it?’

‘A label at the front had been removed. The casing was all scratched where it had been scraped off with a blade. The guy – the one who was selling – said it had probably come from a bank.’

‘And this person, Eamon Heslin, had you any previous dealings with him?’ O’Dowd asked.

‘No. I’d spotted PCs To Go before. It’s along Oxford Road from the student union as you go towards the Aquatics Centre. But I’d never been in. Poky-looking place.’

‘On the day in question, he was in the student union itself?’

‘That’s right.’

‘But not as an official seller – as part of any shop or stall in the building?’

‘No, he was there … you know … just asking people as they went past.’

‘Asking what?’

‘If you wanted a cheap laptop. I know I shouldn’t have got one, but when I saw how much he was asking – and for a Latitude.’

‘A Latitude with a few extra bits thrown in,’ O’Dowd added pointedly. ‘Keyboard, mouse and a proper leather carry case.’

Iona shifted in her seat; her boss’s tone was more like that of a school teacher. ‘He asks,’ she cut in breezily, ‘if you’d be interested in a cheap laptop. And, for two hundred and seventy-five pounds, who wouldn’t?’

He glanced at her with something like gratitude. ‘Yeah.’

She smiled briefly. ‘Did you buy it there and then?’

‘No – I hung to the side and listened to what the deal was.’

‘He had a crowd?’

‘No – just this girl. She paid three hundred for hers, with just a carry case that wasn’t even leather. I bargained a bit and got the other stuff thrown in. And for twenty-five pounds less.’

Iona glanced at her senior officer. Seeing that he was consulting his notes, she said, ‘Another laptop was purchased?’

‘Yeah – he sold the one he had to her. I asked if he had any more. He said yes and we went back to his shop.’

‘How many of these Dells was he selling?’ Iona asked, keeping her voice relaxed.

‘Not sure.’

‘But you think he had others?’

He considered her question. ‘Well, he didn’t say I was lucky or anything. You know, that it was his last one and I’d been just in time.’

Iona narrowed her eyes, like he was the most fascinating person she’d ever spoken to. ‘Try and remember if you can: did he say there were others for sale? As in he’d taken delivery of a batch of them.’

‘A batch?’ Philip shook his head. ‘I don’t remember him saying that.’

O’Dowd finally looked up. ‘What was that about a batch?’

Iona turned to him. ‘I was trying to ascertain if Eamon Heslin had any more of these particular Dells for sale.’

O’Dowd looked at the student. ‘And did he?’

‘I don’t remember him saying.’

‘The girl who bought one before you,’ Iona said. ‘What did she look like?’

‘I don’t know. Normal.’

Normal, Iona thought. Not the most helpful of descriptions. ‘Normal height, you mean?’

‘Yeah.’

‘So, five foot eight – somewhere round that?’

‘I’d say five ten.’

So, Iona thought, she was actually quite tall for a female. ‘And what colour hair did she have?’

His eyes closed for a second as he dredged his memory. ‘Black. Really black, like it had been dyed. And it was tied back in a ponytail.’

‘Good,’ Iona encouraged. ‘Anything about what she was wearing stand out?’

‘She had this purple duffel coat thing. Fur on the hood. It was long, knee length. And she had black leggings on underneath with high top trainers. I think they were probably Converse – they were an unusual colour. Green or maybe orange.’

Iona sent him an appreciative glance. ‘I wish everyone who comes in here was as observant as you. Now, going to his shop: what happened there?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Did he have the laptop on a shelf, in view? Or did you wait while he fetched it from some other part of the premises?’

‘Oh, right. I waited at the counter while he fetched it from a back room. That’s when I saw he had other stuff – peripherals – so I decided to try and haggle a better deal.’

O’Dowd tapped his pen against his knee. ‘At what point did you find the sheets of paper in the carry case?’

Philip raised his chin a moment. ‘When I got home. After I took the laptop out, I went through it to see how many compartments and pockets there were. They were in this zipped inner part. Nearly missed them. It was when I saw the girl’s face on the
Manchester Evening Chronicle
’s website …’ His words faded.

‘When you actually paid for the laptop,’ Iona said, steering the conversation away from the girl, ‘did you use a card?’

Philip’s head shook. ‘He wanted cash. I stopped at a hole-in-the-wall on the way to his shop.’

‘Did he give you any kind of receipt?’

‘No – but he said I could bring it back if it started playing up within the first three months.’

‘Did he not make any kind of note of the date? What about your contact details for his email list?’

‘Yes, he took them.’

‘How about the girl in the duffel coat who also bought one?’

‘Yeah, he jotted hers down.’

Good, Iona thought. ‘When you say jotted, he wrote this stuff down?’

‘Not mine. He entered my details into his computer. By the till. The other student’s, he jotted them down in a little booklet thing.’

‘What details did he take from you? Name, email and phone number?’

He nodded.

‘Home address?’

‘Yes.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Erm, no. That was it.’

‘OK, you’ve been a massive help, Philip,’ O’Dowd suddenly announced.

‘Is that it?’

The super skimmed through the remaining parts of Philip’s statement. ‘It would seem so, for now. A car will take you back into town.’ He got to his feet and extended a hand. ‘Thanks for your assistance.’

Philip reached up, and somewhat awkwardly, shook. ‘Do you think there’s a link between the fire and the profiles from that laptop?’

‘We need to find that out,’ O’Dowd replied, looking down at the younger man.

Philip spread his hands. ‘Am I in any kind of danger?’

‘I don’t think so,’ O’Dowd replied in a reassuring tone. ‘But we’ll give you a number. If you have any cause to feel unsafe, call it and a patrol car will be with you in no time. OK?’

He nodded uncertainly.

Iona held up a hand. ‘Thanks, Philip. See you about.’

Once they were out of the room, O’Dowd started to speak in a low voice. ‘Good work there, Iona. You did well. Our officers at the scene need to prioritise finding the computer Heslin had by his till. If he took details of his customers, he probably took details of his suppliers: I doubt the two laptops came from a legit source.’

‘If they were stolen, would he even put the details on his system?’ Iona responded, hurrying to keep up with O’Dowd’s longer stride.

‘Let’s hope so.’ He shouldered his way through some double doors, a hand holding one open for Iona.

‘Sir, if there was incriminating evidence found with one laptop, couldn’t there be stuff on the one the girl in the duffel coat bought, too? What if there are other laptops out there? We could end up having to track all of them down.’

‘You’re assuming the laptop that girl purchased came from the same place as the one Philip Young bought.’

‘They were both Dell Latitudes, sir. Heslin wasn’t selling any other type that day in the student union.’

As they started up the stairs, O’Dowd grunted in agreement. ‘I’ll get some resources allocated for tracing the girl in the duffel coat and any other purchasers.’

Iona saw an opportunity. Grab it, girl, a voice in her head urged. Once this investigation kicks in properly, you’ll probably never get the chance to speak directly to the super again. ‘I could do it, sir.’

He looked back at her. ‘Do what?’

‘Organize the tracing of the duffel-coat girl – and any other students who may have bought a laptop. Assuming they’re students, I’d be well suited, you know, with my age. And I’m female. We know the other laptop was purchased by a female …’ She wondered whether she’d overdone it, enthusiasm tipping over into grasping ambition.

His step slowed. ‘I’m happy with that, if DCI Roebuck is. I’ll let you have a word.’

She kept the smile off her face. ‘No problem, sir. Do you think Philip could be in danger?’

O’Dowd considered the comment as they reached a landing, turned back on themselves and started climbing again. ‘I don’t think so. There’s a decent chance Eamon Heslin was killed for taking what was probably stolen property. But I think it stops there. What’s more important is finding where Philip Young’s laptop came from. That and the whereabouts of the other two girls in those profiles.’ He stopped at the top step, now almost talking to himself. ‘Because if they’ve already been spirited out of this country, God forbid it’s for the same purpose as Jade Cummings.’

T
hey felt the muted thud as the front door slammed shut above them. A girl with a long blonde ponytail sent a frown up at the ceiling. ‘She said we’d be out there by now. This is doing my head in, being stuck here.’

Her companion continued to twizzle a strand of kinked black hair between her fingers while letting out a yawn. She tossed a celebrity chat magazine aside and draped another across her lap. ‘Who cares? I could do this for weeks.’

‘What? Be locked up under some house? We don’t even know where this is.’

The girl dragged her eyes away from the gallery of images filling the page and glanced about the room they were in. There was a widescreen TV in one corner. Scattered on the carpet before it was an untidy jumble of DVDs. A games console was to one side, cases for it intermingling with the ones containing films. A glass-fronted fridge was next to it, the top shelves laden with cans of soft drinks. Beneath them were several bars of chocolate, a few apples and a punnet of red grapes. A few trashy novels sat on the bookcase in the corner: celebrity autobiographies written by people still in their twenties, romance novels written by ex-models, a few copies of feminine erotica. On the opposite side of the room was an expensive-looking CD player. Plan B was playing on a low volume. ‘Yeah,’ she replied. ‘I could.’

The other girl sighed. ‘Well, I can’t. Wouldn’t mind so much if she’d give us back our mobile phones. Could at least send a few texts.’

‘Yeah, but she explained that, didn’t she? No bloody signal down here.’

‘So? I type them out here and she takes my phone upstairs and sends them there.’

‘And then your phone signal gets picked up by the police. She said how it works – they trace it and next thing, they’re banging on the front door. We go back to that crappy care home and that’s it.’

The other girl stretched her long legs out, sinking deeper into the beanbag as a result. ‘You really think they’ll be out looking? They never have before.’