Times of Trouble (29 page)

‘
We know what you
have been up to and we know lots of people who would be interested.
Give us 35k to guarantee we keep it to ourselves. Will text later
with details’.

There is was. The
blackmail threat. As clear as day and as straightforward as it
needed to be. Was it possible Bill never paid that money, but
didn’t want his secret getting out? Andy’s face showed he
understood, and I could tell he was dying to ask me what it was all
about. But he didn’t.

‘
What was the message
sent next? Did he reply? What was the next phone call?’

‘
The next phone call
was the number that you’ve written down. The one he called
regularly over the last year.’

Didn’t that make it
less likely to be his girlfriend? It would be the last person he
would tell about a threat from some pimp.

‘
What about text
messages back to the number that sent that one?’ I
asked.

A couple of clicks on
the keyboard brought up a new message. It was sent back to what
must be Danny’s phone a day after the original message, and it
said: ‘Don’t threaten me you stupid fuck. You and your friends are
dead. You don’t know who you are dealing with’. And there was proof
of the threat.

‘
Is there any
evidence of phone calls between the two numbers? Or just text
messages?’ I asked, wondering if Danny ever called Bill to organise
the exchange of cash, as he had said he would.

‘
No, it looks like
the second number called the first a few minutes after the original
text, but the first number didn’t answer. Then the next day this
text was sent back.’ Andy pointed to the threat from Bill. His face
had gone quite pale and he looked like he was regretting getting
involved in this mess.

‘
Can we just look up
one last thing?’ I asked, trying not to push Andy too hard. He
nodded, but I could tell this was the last bit of information I’d
get.

‘
What about the
activity on the other number that was called regularly. The one he
called after the text message with the 35,000 turned
up.’

I read out the
number, and Andy filled it into his software. Then, in a subdued
manner, he gave me an outline of the activity.

‘
There are over a
hundred phone calls made with this number every day. The account
has been active for about a year. There have been no calls made,
and none received, since last night. It appears the phone was based
in London until the 20
^th
December last year, when it started making calls in
Sydney.’

‘
Sydney? Can you tell
where it is in Sydney?’

I’d heard of police
using mobile phones to track the location of criminals. Could Andy
possibly give me enough information to lead me directly to this
person?

‘
I can tell you where
the closest phone tower is to most of the calls. The person seems
to be making and taking calls from somewhere near Wollongong, on
the south coast.’

‘
Wollongong? How far
away is that?’

‘
About one and a half
hours south of Sydney I guess.’

That was odd. Maybe I
was wrong about the relevance of this number. But it was the first
person Bill called when he got Danny’s message. And then it turned
up in Sydney exactly 10 days after Sophie and Katie arrived. Was
this the person sent to get rid of them? Could they have pushed
Katie under a train? And why hadn't they made any calls since
yesterday if the account had been so active before then? Why had
Bill not been seen or heard from, or used his phone, since the end
of November?

‘
Thanks so much for
your help Andy, I seriously had no idea software like that
existed.’

Andy grunted an
acknowledgement as he shut down his computer and said: ‘As far as
you are concerned, this software doesn’t exist. I have no idea what
you are going to use that information for, but you can never tell
anyone where you got it. You have to promise.’

The worry in his
voice made me feel bad. I hoped he wouldn’t stress that I was going
to slip up and get him into trouble. I felt like we had bonded over
the last few minutes, but now he seemed ill at ease.

‘
I'll never tell
anyone. Promise, cross my heart.’

The tension left
Andy’s face as he got up from the chair, and went into the kitchen.
I didn’t know what else to say to make him feel any better. He was
obviously worried, not just about using the software, but also
about what he had seen in the text messages. And so was I. Bill had
to have something to do with the murder in London. And now someone
he was in constant contact with was on the south coast of NSW. I
felt better knowing Sophie was a fair way from there. But it still
left me with too many unanswered questions.

I used my newly
anonymous mobile and called the number that had been used near
Wollongong. If Bill had phoned it straight after he got the text
from Danny, it made sense it had to be someone close to the
situation. There was no ringing sound and the message said the
phone was currently switched off or unavailable. I called one more
time just to make sure and got the same result.

There was another
phone call to be made; it was time to tell Liam about progress. I
felt stuck in the house without him and his friend’s car for
transport. Maybe tomorrow I’d spend the day with him at the
hospital. I really doubted Sophie would turn up there again, but we
didn’t really have any other direction to take.

When he answered his
phone he sounded bored and irritable; it was clear his ‘stake out’
wasn’t bearing any fruit.

‘
What have you been
doing today?’ His tone was still accusatory.

‘
I’ve found out so
many things. The visit to the police was totally worthwhile. I know
why someone would want to hurt Sophie, and I think I’ve even got
close to working out who they are.’

‘
So the police didn’t
think they could help you to actually find Sophie?’ he asked,
seeming uninterested in my news.

‘
Well... no... they
are looking for her too, but for another reason... they have less
idea than we do...’

‘
So what was the
point in going to them?’

‘
To see if they could
be any help. Obviously I didn’t expect they would already be
looking for her because of other reasons...’

‘
What other reasons?’
His mounting anger made me regret phoning him.

‘
Sophie and the
others were blackmailing clients. One of them has made a complaint,
and so the police in London tracked Sophie to Sydney. Now they are
looking for her so she can be charged with fraud.’

‘
So Sophie could go
to jail?’

He was starting to
get upset. As usual his concern was for Sophie alone, and he
completely ignored what this information meant for finding a motive
for the murders of two people. I decided not to mention the
notebook, the codes, Allen, or Andy’s software. Liam just wasn’t
interested.

‘
The police want to
speak to her. I have no idea if she would go to jail. But right now
I’m more worried about these other people finding her than the
police.’

‘
So you want to turn
the search for her over to them? You want the police looking for
her instead of us?’

‘
No, I don’t want to
turn it over to them. When the detective said they were looking for
her, I got out of there as quickly as I could. But that won’t stop
them looking.’

He didn’t seem to be
able to be professional about the search anymore. I was more sure
than ever that he had feelings for Sophie.

‘
Ok, so we’ve got to
find her before these psychos and before the police. It makes it
even more urgent, doesn’t it?’

‘
Yeah, I guess. Are
you planning on sticking with your plan at the
hospital?’

‘
Of course I am. I
really think she’s going to turn up here. I’m sure of it in
fact’.

‘
Ok, if you are sure,
I guess it only takes one of us to sit and wait...’

Liam was about to
snap.

‘
Fine. But I think
I’ll go back to Newtown tonight. And I’ll come back here in the
morning.’

He hung up. I stared
at my phone, stunned. What was that all about! It had to be safer
here than in Newtown?

After spending the
evening trying to research more about Bill Holland, I finally gave
up and went to bed early, hoping to get a full night’s sleep, free
from anxiety-induced insomnia. But as usual, my mind was racing at
a hundred miles an hour, trying to decipher everything I had found
that day. I'd tried Bill Holland's phone number numerous times, and
it was still switched off or not available. Nothing on the internet
gave me any more idea where he was, or how he might be involved
with the murders of Danny and Katie. The text he sent to Danny with
the threat was all the proof I needed that he had something to do
with the trouble they had got themselves into. But I couldn't work
out what to do with that information, as it didn't get me any
closer to finding him. Or Sophie.

Chapter 25

Peter Wolcott was at
the end of another long day. The Harrison-Brown case, initially
insignificant, had now expanded into an unsolved murder
investigation, since one of the fraud suspects had turned up dead.
There was little evidence in the case, and no suspects. The keen
young pup from the
Homicide and Serious
Crime Command who was
working
on the murder eagerly welcomed his help, on the grounds that the
links between the murder and the fraud case were too obvious to be
ignored. He wasn’t aware Wolcott only offered after the Chief
Inspector insisted. It was exactly what Wolcott did not feel like
dealing with.

To make matters
worse, Frank Sporalli turned out to be a useless waste of space.
Wolcott and Singh had interviewed him for over two hours, and
though he admitted to a coerced involvement in the blackmail of
Harrison-Brown, he couldn’t or wouldn’t reveal any other targets
for the scam. A search of his flat had turned up quite a bit of
cash, but nothing else of use. He claimed he didn’t have a clue who
might have wanted his friend dead. He knew the women involved had
fled to Sydney, but couldn't give any concrete information about
exactly where they were. He was saying so little that it looked
like he would prefer to be considered guilty, locked in a cell and
kept there, out of harm’s way.

And to load even more
annoyance into the case, the Chief Inspector had called him into
his office first thing that morning, to tell him Harrison-Brown was
now concerned he was being stalked by an associate of his
blackmailers. He claimed someone had emailed a threat to him
through his website. Harrison-Brown was well enough connected to
put plenty of pressure on the Chief Inspector, and this pressure
was heaped, in additional proportions, onto Wolcott. This made him
grumpier than ever.

'Find out who this
Liam Kingsley is who sent the email. It was sent in the middle of
last night. This person could be anyone, but Harrison-Brown is
convinced it has something to do with the blackmailers. The mention
of the name Molly could make this assumption valid,’ the Chief
Inspector had explained. Pompous git.

Wolcott spent the
next couple of hours finding out who Liam Kingsley was. He was
relieved to discover that, though he had temporarily resided in
London, he now lived in Adelaide, Australia. This firmly made him
Australia’s problem. One quick phone call to a detective in
Adelaide, and this small annoyance would soon be off his desk. Only
trouble was, Australia was still asleep for another few hours,
which meant Wolcott would either have to take the file home with
him and do some after hours work, or get in early enough that the
Australians would still be at work. Not being a morning person, he
hated the idea of rising before the sun, so he opted to make the
phone call at 10:00 pm, moments before he went to bed.

The detective he
reached in Adelaide sounded unreasonably bright and cheerful when
he answered the phone, especially considering the early hour there.
It reminded Wolcott of his resentment of the weather in Australia,
which seemed to make all the people living there happier than was
necessary in most situations.

‘
Detective Sergeant
Conroy speaking, how can I help you?’

The three beeps on
the other end of the phone gave away the international caller’s
distant location.

‘
This is Detective
Inspector Wolcott from the
Serious and
Organised Crime Command in
London. I’m calling about a fraud case we’re investigating.
We believe someone on your patch might be a
co-conspirator.’

Wolcott expected the
detective to sound unenthused by this information, which is the way
he would have responded had a similar statement been made to him by
someone calling from overseas. But Detective Conroy not only
remained bright and cheerful, he also gave away a slight sense of
excitement at the news he had been given.

‘
What is the
suspect’s name?’ he asked, and Wolcott could imagine him eagerly
grabbing a pen and starting to write notes, so not to waste any
time.