The Reckoning (44 page)

‘Yes, and that makes sense. Drew is the talkative one. If you wanted to charm someone into trusting you, you’d send Drew.’

‘And they had to get her to trust them so they could persuade her to leave the club without anyone noticing.’ Godley sighed. ‘Right. These two need arresting.’

‘I knew there was something off with them.’ Derwent raised his fist and bounced the side of it off the desk. ‘Did you find anything on them on the PNC, Maeve?’

‘I didn’t look them up.’ I said it in a small voice, but everyone heard and froze where they were standing.

‘Why the hell not? I told you to check them out.’ Derwent looked absolutely furious and I flinched, not strong enough for a confrontation. There was a general movement away from the conversation as people suddenly found they had urgent business back at their desks.

‘I tried, but they gave me the wrong year of birth. Plus their real names are Alexander and Andrew, which they forgot to mention. I only found all of that out when I crosschecked with the DVLA, and then I never got a chance to look them up again because the DS who investigated Patricia Farinelli’s disappearance called me back. I thought it was important to find out what had happened to her, so I got side-tracked.’ I shot a look at Godley, who was looking troubled. ‘DS Rai in Stoke Newington did a piss-poor job on the case so I had to get the details from her parents and friends.’

‘Too long. I stopped listening after “I tried”,’ Derwent snapped. ‘Did you not think checking the Bancrofts might be a priority when you found out they’d
lied
to us?’

‘People do lie about their age, you know. It didn’t strike me as that weird considering they work in a world where you have to be young and trendy. And if they always use their nicknames—’

‘Don’t even fucking attempt to defend yourself!’ His nostrils had gone white around the edges and a vein was standing out on his forehead. ‘If you’d done your job properly we’d have had this information yesterday. We could have arrested them straightaway.’

‘Well, we can arrest them today.’ I swallowed. ‘I’m sorry, all right? I made a mistake.’

‘So did Marla Redmond’s team,’ Liv pointed out. ‘They didn’t even get as far as spotting they lied about their ages.’

‘Being cleverer than that lot is not something to boast about,’ Derwent snapped. ‘You had a reason to be interested in them and you blew it. You’d better hope an extra day didn’t make a difference to Patricia Farinelli.’

‘Look, I feel bad enough about it already. I know I should have done it.’

‘There’s no need to give her a hard time, Josh. I gave her too much to do,’ Godley said quietly.

Stung, I shook my head. ‘It wasn’t too much. I should have been able to manage it. Please don’t underestimate my abilities because I dropped the ball on this one.’

‘Oh, I think we’ve got a fair idea of your abilities at this stage.’ Derwent’s voice was soft, and all the more threatening for that. ‘Look them up. This time, do a proper job. We’ll go and make the arrests, and you can report what you’ve found when we get back.’

‘Is this my punishment? Being left behind?’

‘No, it’s your job. I’m not surprised you don’t seem to recognise it. Try doing it for a change instead of swanking around looking for glory.’

I turned away and went to my desk, sitting down blindly as tears filled my eyes. I was annoyed with myself, and embarrassed that Godley had seen Derwent give me a well-deserved dressing-down. More than anything, though, I was frustrated that I had let Patricia down, despite all of my disdain for DS Rai. I hadn’t behaved much better than him, all things considered.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Godley and Derwent shut themselves in Godley’s office to plan the arrest strategy. I wished quite fiercely that I could go too, but far more than that I wished that they would find Patricia, and bring her home.

I sat in the briefing room, listening to what Derwent was saying about the Bancroft brothers with about ten per cent of my brain. The rest was pure white noise. It would have been useful if my reaction to worrying about Maeve had been something more constructive, but I was stuck with unreasoning panic. Someone had been watching her. Following her. Tracking her down so they knew her workplace, and what she was thinking about, and where she might go next. Learning her routine. I had heard plenty about stalking before; I had even dealt with a woman who had made a complaint about it when I was first in CID, but I had never understood the reality of it. Someone, for reasons known only to himself, had chosen Maeve to be the focus of his attention, and there was nothing she could do about it except hope that we would catch him and pray that he wasn’t violent. I was doing a little of the latter myself. I didn’t like that she was out of my sight, even though I knew she was safe in the office. I didn’t want to let her move a step on her own.

The thing that really bothered me was that the creep who was watching Maeve was calling all the shots. He had even picked how he showed himself to us. He needed catching, and fast. There was just the small formality of arresting the Bancrofts first.

Godley was briskly dividing the assembled squad members into two teams, one to be led by Derwent and the other by the superintendent himself. I willed Godley to choose me for his team and was rational enough to know that had nothing to do with why he picked me.

‘Rob, you can drive my car. I want to stay in touch with Josh and you’re quicker than me anyway.’

There were positive advantages to having ‘drive it like you stole it’ as a philosophy for life, speeding fines notwithstanding.

‘We’ll start off in Archway and arrest Drew Bancroft.’ He handed out maps of both locations, then turned. ‘Josh, you’ve been to Lee Bancroft’s flat. Can you describe the layout for your team and tell them the strategy?’

Derwent nodded, moving centre stage to address the group. He was chewing gum rapidly and blinking very little, hopped up on adrenalin.

‘We’ve got a narrow approach, three flights of stairs. Out the back there’s bound to be a fire escape; I want two of you to scope that out before anyone else moves. We’ll be letting CO19 do their Action Man routine but I don’t want him slipping out the back before we even get a chance to put in the front, so make sure we have it covered from the off.’ His words were coming out at a rattling pace.

‘Who else is in the building?’ someone at the back asked.

‘There’s a shop on the ground floor, an office on the first floor. Flats above that. I don’t know how many people live there but the office should be empty on a Sunday. We’ll go in hard, grab him, and hope he puts up a bit of a fight, if you know what I mean.’

Derwent’s aggression was off the scale. I was even more relieved that Godley was in charge of my team. There was no sign of excitement in the superintendent. If anything, he was speaking in a more measured voice than usual, deliberately underplaying the tension. Just an ordinary day out, arresting two abusive kidnappers who had brought about a teenage girl’s death. It was practically routine when you thought about it.

‘What if they’re not at home?’ Maitland asked. ‘Shouldn’t we hold off until tomorrow morning?’

‘I don’t want to wait. Not with Patricia Farinelli potentially in danger. We’ll sit on the addresses and wait for them to return if need be. So keep a low profile. Unmarked cars only, and try to keep anything that would identify you as coppers out of sight.

‘As Josh mentioned, we’ll have support from CO19. They will be armed so make sure you wear your vests.’

There was a rumble of amusement at that. The Met police vests were described as stabproof rather than bulletproof, which in practice meant they were thick enough to protect you from nothing more lethal than a determined toddler armed with a wooden spoon. Godley held up his hands.

‘I know, I know, but it’s the best we’ve got. Just wear them, okay? And hope the CO19 boys have learned to shoot straight.’

Godley ran through what we knew about the flat Drew lived in, which wasn’t much. It was off the Archway road, a one-bedroom ground-floor flat. All we had was a fuzzy overhead view of the street with an arrow pointing to the correct property.

‘There is a garden but there’s no access from there to the street; you have to go through the house. The gardens back on to each other, so we’ll have to come at it via the neighbours’ houses to seal it off. But it will work in our favour as he can’t escape easily that way either. We’ll approach it through the front. The armed officers will take the lead. Follow their orders or take the consequences.’

‘Drew is the talker; Lee is bigger. Don’t trust either of them,’ Derwent said. ‘They’re into bodybuilding and they hang around the kind of gyms where there’s sawdust on the floor around the boxing ring to soak up the blood. I would guess they know how to handle themselves in a dirty fight. Don’t get too close unless you’re prepared to tangle with them.’

Godley held up a picture of a plump woman with dark hair and eyes. ‘This is Patricia Farinelli as she was when she was last seen eighteen months ago. She may not look like this now. We will be arresting anyone in the flats with the brothers as a matter of course, but keep your eyes open for someone who looks like Patricia. We have to take into account that she may be a willing participant in their games, free to come and go as she wishes, so if you spot her in either area, pick her up. It’s more likely that she’s their captive, and I doubt she was in the Hampstead flat since the brothers chose to meet you there, Josh. Wherever she is, finding her is our top priority after arresting these two safely.’

Nods all round, serious faces. No one had taken this case lightly from the start, but something about seeing the video had made it real for all of us. It was the way Lee had touched Cheyenne. He had treated her like a thing, like she was his to display. He had seemed to be having fun. I was fairly sure I wasn’t alone in thinking it was past time for the fun to stop.

‘We’ll leave at eleven. No need to travel in convoy but stay on the radio for updates. We’ll be meeting the armed officers at the rendezvous points I’ve indicated for both addresses.’

We shuffled out of the briefing room, chatting and yawning and generally acting as if we weren’t on edge. It seemed to help with the nerves. I walked straight into Maeve who was cutting through the crowd with an unseeing look on her face. In one movement I took her arm, drew her into the small meeting room nearby, and shut the door. I doubt anyone else even noticed. She didn’t resist, but when I turned around she was standing where I’d let go of her, staring into space.

‘Are you okay?’

A tiny shrug. ‘Not really.’ Her face was as white as paper, her eyes huge and troubled.

‘We’ll find him, Maeve. You don’t have to worry. He’s not going to get away with following you around any longer.’

‘Oh, that.’ She sounded vague. ‘I’m sure you’re right.’

‘What else? The PNC check?’ I shook my head. ‘Don’t let Derwent upset you. Anyone could have done the same thing. And the chances are it wouldn’t have made any difference.’

‘Lee has a record.’ She said it clearly but I could tell it cost her something to admit it. ‘He was put in a juvenile detention centre when he was fifteen.’

‘What for?’ I was hoping for something like vandalism.

‘Rape. On a twelve-year-old girl in his school, according to the CRIS report.’

‘Behind the bike sheds?’

‘More or less. The report isn’t very forthcoming. There’s a note from the officer who investigated, asking anyone who wants to consult Lee’s record to contact him, so I’m waiting for him to call me back.’

‘That sounds serious.’

‘Yes. I don’t think Lee is a very pleasant person.’ She gave me a tight smile. ‘So it might have made a difference if I’d looked him up properly yesterday.’

‘Move on. There’s nothing you can do about it now except torture yourself, and there’s no point.’

‘Right.’ She managed to get a world of sarcasm into that one word.

‘You don’t seem too worried about being watched.’

‘I’m trying not to think about it.’

‘I can’t think about much else,’ I said truthfully. ‘It bothers me, Maeve.’

‘What are you going to do? Act as a bodyguard?’

‘If I have to.’ I paused for a second before I went on. I knew what I needed to say, and I knew what her reaction would be. If I pushed her too far, too fast, she would put up the barricades again and I would lose any advantage I’d gained by giving her more space. But I couldn’t let that stop me from doing what was right. And in the end, the choice between keeping her safe and persuading her to trust me wasn’t a hard decision at all. ‘I don’t think you should stay in your flat on your own. I want you to move in with me.’

She looked startled, as if the idea hadn’t occurred to her. ‘Have you been talking to Derwent?’

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘He has all sorts of rules about it,’ she said vaguely.

‘Good for him.’ I put my hands in my pockets, keeping the distance between us so I didn’t seem to be crowding her. ‘Don’t worry. I don’t mean that you should move in with me permanently. Just for a while, until we’ve got him off the streets and out of your life.’

‘Oh.’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing. It’s just—’ She stopped. ‘Nothing.’

‘No, go on.’ I was braced for her to say something cutting.

‘I never thought you would ask me to move in with you like this. Not for security, or as – as flatmates, or whatever you have in mind.’

‘I can’t win.’ I sat down on the edge of the table, defeated. ‘I’m just trying to do the right thing.’

‘Of course you are. You always do.’

I waited, but she didn’t say anything else. ‘Did you have an answer in mind?’

She closed her eyes for a second. ‘I have to say no.’

‘Why?’

‘I just can’t.’

‘What’s the alternative? You move back in with your parents? Try and find somewhere else in a hurry? Stay in some crappy hotel? You can’t stay in that flat. I’m not having it.’

‘Oh, you’re not having it. In that case, let me go and pack.’ Sarcasm. Her eyes had narrowed. I recognised the warning signs. She would be losing her temper in roughly thirty seconds. I wasn’t far off it myself.