Dark Mirror bak-10 Read online

  Kathy got out her phone and rang Sundeep. Through the glass she saw him reach into his pocket. ‘Sundeep, it’s Kathy. I’m outside with Dr Ringland, the lab director. Can you spare a moment for a quick word?’

  ‘Very well, Kathy. Give me a minute.’

  When Sundeep came out they went together to a small meeting room where Kathy recorded Ringland’s litany of concerns and complaints, coaxing Sundeep to respond patiently. When they were finished, she remained with Ringland.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, mollified. ‘I suppose you’ve got a job to do. But I can’t imagine how the Summers woman could have got her hands on any arsenic from our lab, I really can’t.’

  Funny thing about language, Kathy thought, how it gives people away- the Summers woman. You’d never say, the Ringland man.

  ‘I asked you before if someone else could have got it for her.’

  ‘Tony da Silva, that’s what you mean, isn’t it? Have you thought that she might have wanted you to think that?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Tony told me that you were thinking she took the stuff deliberately. Maybe she wanted to implicate Tony while she was at it.’

  ‘Why would she want to do that?’

  ‘Hah!’ He gave a bitter laugh. ‘Because she was a manipulative bitch who was prepared to do anything to get her own way.’

  ‘Even kill herself?’

  ‘Maybe she got the dose wrong. I told you before that she wasn’t very good with figures.’

  ‘Yes you did, didn’t you? But why implicate her supervisor?’

  Ringland shrugged-rather evasively, Kathy thought. ‘I don’t know. Out of spite, I suppose. They didn’t always see eye to eye.’

  ‘I don’t always see eye to eye with my boss, but I don’t try to implicate him in my suicide.’

  ‘That’s what I mean-she was unstable.’

  ‘You said manipulative, wanting to get her own way. So how was Dr da Silva stopping her?’

  He shook his head dismissively. ‘I’m just saying she gave him a lot of grief. She was a difficult student, okay? She demanded a lot of attention. We all get them from time to time. She was a particularly bad case.’

  ‘Did he sleep with her, Colin?’

  ‘Christ!’ Ringland rocked back in his seat. ‘Who told you that?’

  Kathy smiled. ‘That’s not really an answer, is it?’

  ‘Look…’ He was flustered now. ‘You’d have to ask Tony. I certainly don’t believe so, and you’d be advised to take student gossip with a grain of salt.’

  ‘Or a grain of arsenic.’ Kathy got to her feet. ‘Thanks for your help, and for your patience with our audit. We’ll get out of your hair as soon as we can.’

  She was stepping out the front door when her phone rang, and once again she heard the excited, slightly breathless voice of the librarian, Gael Rayner.

  ‘Kathy! Sorry, but we’ve had another incident.’

  ‘Another one?’

  ‘Yes, an assault, right here in the library stacks.’

  ‘What kind of assault? Not another poisoning?’

  ‘No, much more physical. Someone just attacked Nigel Ogilvie. One of the other readers heard the commotion and found him, unconscious. I rang triple nine for an ambulance, and now you. I thought you’d want to know.’

  ‘Yes, of course. I’m on my way.’

  The ambulance was parked outside the library’s front door on St James’s Square when Kathy arrived, the stretcher being loaded into the back.

  She showed her ID. ‘How is he?’

  ‘Heavy bruising, cuts, probable concussion and fractured ribs and radius. He was conscious when we arrived, said he’d fallen down the stairs, but that’s not how it looks.’

  ‘Okay.’ Kathy checked the motionless figure in the neck brace, eyes closed. ‘Where are you taking him?’

  ‘UCH.’

  Gael Rayner opened the front door of the library and waved Kathy in. ‘We locked all the doors after I phoned you, just in case the assailant was still here. I wasn’t sure if that was the right thing to do.’ Her eyes were bright with excitement.

  ‘That’s fine. Tell me what happened.’

  Gael led her in through a crowd of chattering readers in the entrance hall. ‘One of our members, Mr Vujkovic, was in the stacks and heard an argument on the floor below. Then there was a cry and a crash. He went down to investigate, although he’s not a very agile man, so it took him a little time. He found Nigel lying among a pile of books that had fallen out of the shelves.’

  They hurried back through the library to the book stacks, to where several elderly men were standing in a cluster at the foot of a flight of stairs, beside a tumbled heap of books scattered across the floor. Kathy recognised Mr Vujkovic, and he shuffled forward and repeated the story in broken English.

  ‘The ambulance officer told me that Nigel said he’d fallen down the stairs,’ Kathy said.

  ‘No, no,’ Mr Vujkovic said. ‘There was much struggle, much argument. Maybe push down stair, yes, okay, but not fall.’

  ‘Was he arguing with a man, or a woman?’

  ‘I think man. I couldn’t see. Nigel scream like pig in slaughterhouse.’

  Two uniformed officers had arrived, and Kathy sent them off to search the building, guided by one of the librarians. She looked around at the scene. There was blood on the steel grille floor, and also traces of sand on the bottom step of the staircase.

  ‘Do the builders come up here, Gael?’

  ‘No, they shouldn’t.’

  ‘But if we go down a level we’d come to the door out to the area where they’re working, is that right? Show me.’

  They went down the next flight and emerged into a corridor. Along the floor Kathy found other traces of sand and cement dust. They came to the door that Gael had let Kathy in by the previous week when she’d come to interview Nigel Ogilvie. It was unlocked. Kathy pushed it open and walked out into the passageway beside the building site, following it to the open entrance gates. The site hut was nearby, and fixed to its parapet was a security camera covering the site entry and street outside. She knocked on the door, and explained to the site manager what had happened.

  ‘This was about forty minutes ago,’ she said.

  ‘No problem.’

  He fiddled with the machine in the corner of his office, and then replayed it backwards.

  ‘There!’ They watched as a white van materialised across the courtyard, and a man ran backwards out of it and into the library’s compound. Running the recording further back they established that the white van had arrived fifteen minutes earlier. The image of the driver, wearing overalls and a peaked cap, was indistinct, but Kathy was able to make out the van’s number. It took one phone call to establish that it belonged to Brentford Pyrotechnics.

  •

  The tyres squealed as Kathy turned into the car park of the fireworks factory, the blue light pulsing. She pulled up at the office entrance and marched into the reception area. A girl at the front desk jumped as she demanded to see Mr Pigeon, and hurried to the door of the adjoining office. The manager appeared, greeting her with a cautious smile, and led her into his room.

  ‘Another query, Inspector?’

  She handed him the number of the van taken from the CCTV. ‘Is this your van, Mr Pigeon?’

  He studied the slip of paper. ‘I think that may be one of ours. Why?’

  ‘I’d like to know who the driver is and where it is now.’

  ‘Is this a traffic matter? Has it been in an accident?’

  ‘If you could just answer my questions, please.’

  Pigeon frowned, then seeing the look on Kathy’s face lifted the phone and dialled an internal number. After a short conversation he said, ‘The driver is Keith Rafferty. He left about an hour and a half ago to take a consignment out to a job in Epping, due back after lunch, around two. Now, may I ask what this is all about?’

  ‘Your van was recorded just over an hour ago at an address in Central Lond
on at the time of a serious assault. The driver was filmed going into the building where the assault took place.’

  ‘My goodness. You suspect Keith?’

  ‘You know he has a criminal record, do you?’

  Pigeon’s eyebrows rose. ‘I can’t say I was aware of that, no. One moment.’

  He went over to a filing cabinet and withdrew a file. There were a couple of pages inside. ‘No, there’s no mention of a record. Was it serious, what he did?’

  ‘Assault, living off immoral earnings. He did gaol time. There was also a rape case that was dropped for lack of evidence.’

  ‘Oh dear. I had no idea. He had a very glowing reference from a security consultant…’ he scanned one of the pages, ‘by the name of Crouch.’

  ‘Yes, they were in the army together. Crouch was also implicated in the alleged rape.’

  ‘Oh. Well, that is most disturbing. So you want to interview Keith?’

  ‘I certainly do, but I’m also interested in another matter, possibly connected. You remember when I was here before that we talked about the security of your chemicals?’

  ‘Of course, and I showed you our clearance documents and our latest security vetting.’

  ‘We didn’t discuss the possibility of one of your own employees removing material.’

  ‘Yes, but I told you, deliveries are weighed and recorded as they arrive and the use of all chemicals carefully tracked and accounted for.’

  ‘What about a delivery driver, maybe helping himself to small quantities from shipments before they’re checked in? Would that be possible?’

  Pigeon’s mouth opened to protest, then a little cloud of doubt passed over his eyes. ‘Well, I’d say no, but I suppose I could check. You think Keith Rafferty…?’

  ‘I’d appreciate it if you would keep this to yourself for the moment, Mr Pigeon. He may have had a friend in the laboratory who would cover up for him. I think it would be a good idea if you carried out your own checks and got back to me, preferably within the next twenty-four hours.’

  ‘I see. Well, yes, I’ll see what I can do.’

  As she got back into her car, Kathy had a call from Brock.

  ‘Kathy? Where are you?’

  She explained about the assault at the London Library and her trip out to the fireworks factory. ‘I’m going to arrest Rafferty as soon as he gets back.’

  There was an ominous pause, then Brock said, ‘No. I want you back here, Kathy. Quick as you can.’

  ‘But-’

  ‘Quick as you can, Kathy.’ The line went dead. seventeen

  ‘ B ren told me about the cat,’ Brock said.

  ‘Yes, well you can understand how I feel then.’ Kathy sat rigid in the seat facing him across his desk, knowing he could see her anger blazing like a beacon, a part of her regretting this unfamiliar feeling of rebellion against him, another part relishing it.

  ‘All the more reason for you to drop it,’ Brock said. ‘He’s trying to goad you, make you step over the line. Don’t worry, he’s not going to get away with it. I’m going to put Bren onto the Ogilvie assault.’

  ‘No!’ Startled at the vehemence of her own reaction, Kathy felt the blood rush to her head. She bit her lip, then continued, more measured, ‘He doesn’t have the background.’

  ‘Then you’ll have to give it to him.’ Brock sat back in his chair, studying her. ‘How do you see it, then, Kathy? Do you think Rafferty killed Marion?’

  She hesitated. ‘I don’t know. Oh, he’s capable of it, and we know he likes tampering with girls’ drinks. It’s also possible that he raped her and made her pregnant, but there’s the business of the unknown benefactor who stumped up three-quarters of a million for her house.’

  ‘You have a suspect?’

  ‘Her supervisor, Dr Anthony da Silva, a flirt with his students, married to a wealthy lawyer, living conveniently close to Marion’s new house. It’s even possible he had Rafferty working for him, doing his dirty work.’

  ‘That’d be a risky business relationship,’ Brock mused. ‘Why the attack on Ogilvie?’

  ‘I think he knows more than he told us-maybe something he picked up from snooping around Marion. Maybe da Silva got Rafferty to persuade him to keep quiet.’

  ‘That’s possible, I suppose.’ The atmosphere in the room had relaxed a little. ‘Brief Bren, Kathy. Get him to follow it up. As for Marion, if we really have got a murder on our hands, rather than a suicide, I’d like to get Alex Nicholson to take another look. Why don’t you draw up a profiler briefing for her. Keep it simple-victimology, scene, forensics-you know the form.’

  Kathy nodded.

  ‘Then concentrate on Interpol. Maybe you should go over to see them at Lyons. Have you ever been?’

  She shook her head, feeling sorry that he felt he had to offer her a little treat in compensation. ‘I’ll speak to Bren.’

  Bren was a solid, dependable detective, who’d got her out of trouble on more than one occasion, and she knew she could rely on him. He listened patiently to her briefing, asked a few pertinent clarifiers, and gave a brisk nod. ‘I’ll take him apart, Kathy, don’t worry.’

  ‘Well, watch your back, Bren. Remember there’s two of them, him and Crouch.’

  ‘They won’t even know it’s happening until it’s too late.’

  ‘How are you going to do that?’

  ‘Don’t know yet.’ He gave her a benign smile; one he’d picked up from Brock, she thought.

  She returned to her desk and drew up a summary of the Marion Summers case, which she emailed to Alex Nicholson, then forced herself to concentrate on the Interpol requests. It wasn’t as if they weren’t interesting-a fugitive Australian con man thought to have slipped into Britain on a tourist bus from Holland, a Bulgarian people-trafficker believed to be hiding from vengeful colleagues he had cheated, a Russian couple who had probably abducted a missing child. She picked up the phone and got back to following the lines of inquiry she’d already begun, putting Keith Rafferty and Nigel Ogilvie out of her mind.

  That evening, as people began to stretch and yawn and reach for their coats, Bren came and sat on the edge of her desk.

  ‘Ogilvie is sitting up in his hospital bed, enjoying the attention of the nurses. He insists that he lost his footing on the stairs while he was carrying a pile of books and that there was no one else involved. The witness, Mr Vujkovic, and the doctor say otherwise. The doc showed me pictures he took while he was dressing the wounds-you can actually see the print of someone’s boot on his thigh and shoulder. But Ogilvie won’t change his story. I showed him Rafferty’s picture and he feigned ignorance, but you could tell he was scared shitless. I don’t think he’s going to change his tune, unless we can get to the bottom of what’s been going on from some other angle.’

  ‘What about Rafferty? Did you speak to him?’

  ‘Yes. He didn’t deny that he’d gone to the rear of the London Library. He said someone who wouldn’t give his name phoned him and asked to meet him there, concerning Marion’s death. But when he got there no one showed up, and after ten minutes he left without seeing anyone. His knuckles were grazed and slightly swollen-from carting boxes, he said.’ Bren smiled grimly. ‘Leave it with me.’

  A bit later Pip came by Kathy’s desk.

  ‘Sorry, boss,’ she said, head down, contrite. ‘This is all my fault.’

  ‘Swings and roundabouts, Pip. All in a day’s work. How are you going?’

  ‘Oh, good. I’m working with the boys on a series of bank robberies involving fatal shootings.’

  ‘Well, you take care.’

  ‘It’s all right. I’m not usually so stupid.’ She hesitated, fiddling with a file in her hand. ‘I did finish off one little job you gave me. Do you want it, or should I give it to DI Gurney?’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘The posy of white flowers Marion had.’ She opened the file. ‘ Cistaceae, of the rock rose family.’ She offered Kathy a sheet with photographs and information on the plant taken, Kathy no
ted, from the internet.

  ‘Oh… well done.’

  Pip handed her another sheet. ‘In the Victorian language of flowers, the gum cistus of the Cistaceae plant family symbolised imminent death. Literally it meant, I shall die tomorrow.’

  ‘And that’s exactly what she did. You think it was some kind of message from someone?’

  ‘Could be.’

  ‘Any idea where they could have come from?’

  ‘Not really. You see the five petals around the yellow stamens in the centre?’ She handed Kathy an enlargement of the photo Gael had sent over.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘We should get an expert to look at them, but from what I’ve been able to find out, they’re Cistus monspeliensis, Montpellier cistus. It’s a wild flower.’

  ‘Montpellier?’ Kathy said. ‘The south of France?’

  ‘That’s right, that’s where they’re most common. But where would you find them in London?’

  But Kathy was thinking that Corsica was off the south coast of France. The place had cropped up in Brock’s notes of his meeting with Sophie Warrender, and again when Kathy had checked where Tom Reeves had disappeared to. Calvi, it turned out, was also in Corsica. It seemed like a sign of some kind, or more likely one of those coincidences that just happen.

  Pip said, ‘Shall I give this to Bren?’

  ‘No, leave it with me. We don’t want to confuse things. Thanks.’ She gave Pip a little smile and she grinned back.

  ‘Sure, boss.’

  As Kathy was getting ready to leave for the night, she decided to ring Donald Fotheringham to see how he was getting on with Tina.

  ‘Like a house on fire, Inspector.’

  ‘Really?’ Kathy tried to imagine it. They seemed the most unlikely of companions. ‘That’s good.’

  ‘Aye. She’s an interesting lassie, and a good friend to Marion. I was afraid at first that we wouldnae hit it off. I spoke to her flatmate, a girl called Jummai, who seemed to feel that we wouldn’t, but all went well after I explained to Tina that I just wanted to get to the bottom of what happened to Marion. After that she agreed to let me help her.’

  ‘Doing what?’