The Raven's Eye Page 3

  The receptionist said she’d get Mr Budd to see Kathy, and she sat down to wait. Looking around, she noticed several security cameras, and keypads on each of the doors. After some time one of the doors burst open and a man appeared. His face was flushed, his stance belligerent, and Kathy thought that if she’d seen him coming like that out of a pub she’d have been reaching for her ASP baton.

  He glared at the receptionist. She nodded at Kathy, who got to her feet and held out her ID.

  He glanced at it. ‘Steve Budd, manager. What’s the problem?’

  ‘Do you have an employee here by the name of Vicky Hawke, Mr Budd?’

  ‘Vicky? Yes, in marketing. Is something wrong?’

  Kathy, aware of the receptionist listening, said, ‘Is there somewhere we can talk?’

  He showed her into a small meeting room and closed the door.

  ‘I’m afraid Vicky’s had a fatal accident.’

  He rocked back. ‘Fatal? Hell . . . Where was this?’

  ‘On her boat.’

  ‘Boat?’ He looked confused. ‘I don’t understand. What boat?’

  ‘She lived on a boat on the Regent’s Canal.’

  He shook his head. ‘No, no. Are you sure we’re talking about the same person?’

  ‘Do you have a picture of her on file?’ Kathy asked.

  ‘Sure.’ He went to a computer at one end of the table and passed his open hand across the screen, which came immediately to life. He tapped for a few moments and a picture appeared, the same girl Kathy had seen lying on the bed, but suffused now with life, smiling at the camera.

  ‘Yes, that’s her. Could I get a copy of that? We don’t have a decent picture.’

  ‘Okay, but she lived in a crummy flat in Haringey somewhere . . . Crouch End.’ He did a bit more typing and said, ‘Yes, here we are, 62 Carnegie Crescent.’

  Kathy had the feeling that Budd had been quite familiar with that address, and she was wondering if he might be the reason that Vicky was living anonymously in a canal boat. He had appeared genuinely shocked at the news of her death, but she’d been fooled before. ‘What I’m after is an address for her parents, or next of kin. Can you help me with that?’

  ‘We should have something . . . yes, here . . . Mr and Mrs Geoffrey Hawke, address in Islington.’

  Kathy took down the details.

  ‘Jeez, marketing’ll be upset.’

  ‘She was popular, was she?’

  He hesitated, considering his words. ‘She was pleasant enough, but to be quite honest, she wasn’t really suited to our work, and the others had to step in to help her out.’

  ‘How long had she been here?’

  ‘Just coming up to three months, the end of her trial period. Frankly, we wouldn’t have been renewing her contract. Shame, she had such a great CV, but when it came to performance . . .’ He shrugged. ‘She didn’t seem to have much of a clue. I wanted to get rid of her before now, but she persuaded me against my better judgement.’

  Unfortunate choice of words, Kathy thought. ‘Could I have a copy of her CV, please?’

  ‘Don’t see why not.’

  Budd printed off a copy and she thanked him and left, wondering why he hadn’t asked how Vicky had died.

  This time, Kathy thought as she pulled up at the Islington address, one of a row of tall, thin, red brick Victorian houses; then I have to get back.

  Her knock was answered by Mrs Hawke, who blinked with concern when Kathy told her who she was.

  ‘Not bad news, I hope? Is it about the accident at the end of the street?’

  ‘Could I come in for a moment? Is Mr Hawke at home?’

  ‘Yes. Does it involve him?’

  ‘Both of you. Thank you.’

  She was shown into a sitting room which opened through to a dining room with a view over a back garden. A white-haired man was sitting reading a newspaper at the dining table, on which stood a pot of coffee. He rose to his feet.

  Kathy shook hands and they sat down. ‘I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news. It concerns Vicky. I’m afraid your daughter has met with a fatal accident.’

  Mrs Hawke gasped, covered her face and turned away. Her husband groaned, ‘Oh no,’ almost as if, for all the years that he’d been a parent, he’d been waiting for just this moment.

  ‘I told her,’ Mrs Hawke said, shaking her head. ‘It’s a dangerous place. Those drivers.’

  ‘How . . . ?’ her husband asked. ‘What happened?’

  Kathy began to explain about the boat, the heater, but as she spoke she was aware that their expressions had changed to incomprehension.

  ‘Just a moment,’ he said. ‘What boat, what canal?’

  ‘In Rio?’ his wife said.

  Now Kathy was mystified. ‘No, in Paddington, the Regent’s Canal.’

  They looked at each other, baffled, and then Mr Hawke said slowly, ‘Are you quite sure that you’ve come to the right place? Our daughter, Victoria Sarah Hawke, is currently living with her partner, Fabio Mendes, at their home in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. We spoke to her there just yesterday evening.’

  Kathy stared at them both, then said, ‘I have a picture of the Vicky Hawke I’ve come about. Perhaps you could tell me . . .’

  She took out the copy of the photograph she’d obtained from Paddington Security and showed it to them. Mrs Hawke gave a sob and cried, ‘Oh, thank God.’

  Mr Hawke raised his eyes to the ceiling and drew in a deep breath. Finally, having composed himself, he looked at Kathy. ‘This is not our daughter. Have you any idea what you have just put my wife and me through? I really think you might have the decency to make sure of your facts before you come blundering—’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ his wife said, taking the picture from him and staring at it. ‘Isn’t this Gudrun Kite?’

  He paused, irritated. ‘Who?’

  ‘Gudrun, Geoffrey. Don’t you remember? Vicky’s best friend at school. The hair is different, but I’m sure it’s her.’ She turned to Kathy. ‘We used to live in Cambridge, that’s where Vicky went to school, and she and Gudrun were inseparable. Kite and Hawke—the teachers used to say they would be high-flyers.’

  ‘I think you’re right,’ her husband conceded. ‘I think it does look like her. But then . . .’ he turned on Kathy, ‘how the hell did you mix her up with our daughter?’

  ‘Because this woman was living on a canal boat in London using your daughter’s name. She had given her employers your names as her parents and next of kin. That’s why I’m here.’

  ‘Why would she do a thing like that?’ Mrs Hawke said.

  And at the same time her husband, looking horrified, said, ‘She’d stolen Vicky’s identity? Dear God, what else had she stolen? Her money?’

  ‘That’s something we should take up with your daughter straight away,’ Kathy said. ‘She needs to check with her bank and credit-card companies. What sort of work does Vicky do, Mrs Hawke?’

  ‘Marketing. After school she went to the London School of Marketing and then got a really good job in the city. She met Fabio and they moved to Rio, where they’ve set up their own consultancy.’

  ‘Did Gudrun also go into marketing?’

  ‘Oh no, she wasn’t really a people-person like Vicky. As far as I remember she went on to do science of some kind. She stayed in Cambridge and did her degree at the university there. It was about then, when the girls left school, that we moved down here to London.’

  Kathy thought about that. ‘I could be wrong, but it’s possible that Gudrun used Vicky’s CV to get the job she had in Paddington. And if that’s the case she may have gained access to other personal information. Could we get on the phone to Vicky now?’

  It was four hours earlier in Rio, breakfast time, and Mrs Hawke got through to her daughter at her home. Vicky sounded incredulous as her mother explained what had happened. She and Gudrun had lost touch when they left school eight years previously, she explained, Vicky to study marketing in London and Gudrun staying in Cambridge to read computer sc
ience. There had been no contact between them—not a phone call or a Christmas card or a message on Facebook—in all that time. And Vicky wasn’t aware of any irregularities in her banking or credit-card accounts.

  Kathy asked her to check these, and also to email her CV so that Kathy could compare it to the one Gudrun had used at Paddington Security Services. ‘I need to contact her family urgently, Vicky,’ she added. ‘Can you tell me where they live?’

  ‘The Kites? Yes, of course, they’ll be devastated. Mrs Kite is a lovely person—please give her my love and tell her how sorry I am. I didn’t know Gudrun’s father so well. He was a rather remote figure, a bit intimidating and scary, a professor in something obscure at the university, like Icelandic history or something. There were two girls, Gudrun and an elder sister, um . . . Freyja, that’s her name. Super bright. I mean Gudrun was smart, much smarter than me, but Freyja was supposed to be practically a genius. They lived in a big house in Harvey Road, just off Parker’s Piece. Can’t remember the number I’m afraid.’

  After they’d hung up Mrs Hawke said to Kathy, ‘I remember Gudrun’s mother, Sigrid Kite, very warm, unflappable motherly type. She will be devastated. You’ll go and see her, won’t you? I mean, not just tell her over the phone?’

  ‘Of course. And I’m sorry to have given you both that shock.’

  ‘Well, that was Gudrun’s fault, wasn’t it? I wonder what the poor girl thought she was playing at?’

  4

  Brock had been called before the Strategic Review Tribunal. They faced him, arrayed down a long table: in the centre a woman from Finance Services, whose rapidly spoken name Brock had missed, ostensibly taking the role of lead interrogator; flanked by the group task auditor, D.K. Payne, on her left; and, so far ominously silent, the new head of Homicide and Serious Crime Command, Commander Fred Lynch, on her right.

  From rather broad reflections on the current realities of budget cuts and diminishing resources, they had rapidly focused in on the operational procedures—‘habits’, the chief interrogator called them—of the twenty-three teams of Homicide and Serious Crime Command, of which Brock’s was one, and had ambushed him with a case study.

  ‘Which,’ D.K. Payne said with a prim smile, staring through his Himmler-style glasses, ‘took place just this very morning.’

  An erroneous logging by a local CID unit of a domestic fatality as a homicide had resulted in officers—two senior officers—of Brock’s team attending the scene, where they were advised that the forensic pathologist had concluded that death was accidental and the call-out had been a mistake. Despite this, the senior of the two H&SC officers had insisted on demanding full-scale forensic and manpower resources appropriate to a major homicide investigation.

  Brock said calmly, ‘I have complete confidence in DI Kolla’s judgement. She is a very experienced officer, not given to making rash decisions. If she wanted those resources she should have been given them.’

  D.K. Payne gave a thin, barely suppressed grin, the sort of curled lip that a wolf might have on seeing its quarry trotting blandly into an impasse from which there was no escape. But it was the woman from Finance Services who replied, in a severe monotone. ‘This small incident is exemplary as a catalogue of the errors which are, it would seem, endemic and hugely wasteful. The first is that it is not H&SC’s role to duplicate, countermand or critique the work of Borough Area Command CID teams; the second is that investigating officers, no matter how experienced, must not assume levels of technical expertise they do not possess—DI Kolla is not, I think, a qualified forensic pathologist; and third, investigating officers must gain clearance for significant resource outlays.’

  ‘Mm.’ Brock frowned and scratched his beard as if seriously considering these weighty points. Finally he said, ‘We could debate the particular case—the CID officer was called away before a decision could be made; the pathologist, although an expert in medical matters, was not qualified to assess certain dubious features of the scene, and so on. But the most important issue is surely your third point: to what extent can we afford to have an administrative assessor, remote from the scene and inexperienced in criminal investigations, duplicate, countermand and critique the decisions of an investigating officer on the ground?’

  This was not her third point, of course, and she shot Brock an angry glare. ‘The real point, Chief Inspector, as you well know, is that we have twenty per cent less resources with which to do the same job. So are you and each of the other H&SC teams going to make that saving? Or do we have to close down five teams? It’s as simple as that.’

  Into the silence that followed, Commander Lynch finally spoke. ‘It’s a matter of holding the line, Brock. This is an opportunity as well as a threat. It will make us leaner and smarter. The crisis will force the introduction of new technologies that will transform policing, but until that happens we have to be tough enough to hold on. Are you tough enough?’

  When he was dismissed, Brock found a message on his phone from Kathy. He rang her back and listened to her account of Gudrun Kite’s deception.

  ‘So what do you want me to do?’ she asked. ‘Shall I give it back to CID, let them follow it up?’

  ‘If you do, they’ll just get someone from Cambridge police to call on the family and break the news, and we’ll be no wiser about what Gudrun was up to. No, they’ve washed their hands of it. Are you sure you want to go?’

  ‘Yes. If necessary I’ll keep it off my timesheet, so the secret police don’t know.’

  ‘They’re probably listening to this call,’ Brock said, only half believing it was a joke. ‘It isn’t just the false identity that’s bothering you, is it?’

  ‘No, I felt something was wrong before that—the absence of a phone or a computer, for instance. The place felt as if it had been stripped clean.’

  ‘Okay. Good luck.’

  ‘There’s one thing I’d appreciate. Do you think you could speak to Sundeep and persuade him to do the postmortem? I’d feel more reassured if he says there’s nothing to worry about.’

  ‘I’ll do that.’

  Brock put down the phone, frowning into his mug of coffee, still replaying in his mind his interview with the tribunal. What were these new technologies anyway? More cameras? More computers? Nothing to compare with a smart detective with a sharp eye.

  5

  Before leaving, Kathy phoned the number she’d traced for a Professor Desmond Kite with an address in Harvey Road, Cambridge, to make sure she wouldn’t have a wasted journey. His voice sounded distant and suspicious, but when she told him that she was a police officer he immediately became animated.

  ‘Is it about my daughter?’ he demanded.

  ‘Yes, sir, it is.’

  ‘Do you have fresh information?’

  Kathy was surprised. ‘Perhaps it’s best if I tell you in person, Professor.’ She quickly made arrangements to come to his house at about six that evening and rang off.

  What did he mean by fresh information? She checked to see if he or anyone else had previously reported Gudrun missing, but could find nothing. She shrugged and headed her car out towards the M11.

  When she reached Cambridge she found the darkened streets shrouded in fog. The effect of gothic gloom was heightened in Harvey Road by the ranks of Victorian gables seen through a screen of skeletal trees. The Kites’ house appeared forbidding, no lights visible in the windows, and Kathy checked the time again—ten minutes past six.

  She mounted the steps to the shadowy porch and found a brass button that she pressed. Somewhere inside a buzzer sounded, then silence.

  Kathy pulled her coat tighter around her against the chill night and reached for her phone, but just as she began scrolling through her contacts list for his number a dim light showed through the glass panel above the door and she heard footsteps.

  As soon as his figure appeared in the doorway, Kathy thought of Vicky Hawke’s description: remote, intimidating, a bit scary. He was tall, slightly stooped, gaunt and with what appeared to b
e an unyielding expression of disapproval on his bony features. ‘Come in.’

  Kathy followed him to a small study at the back of the house, where an old cat lay curled up asleep on a pile of manuscripts on a cluttered table. There was a gas fire, and this room at least was warm. She unbuttoned her coat and sat down, taking in the old prints on the walls, showing scenes of what looked like Viking warriors and maidens. Kite sat down opposite her, and she noticed that he seemed to be wearing gardening trousers, stained and frayed, and an odd pair of shoes, one black and the other brown.

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘you have information about Freyja.’

  Freyja? It’s happening again, Kathy thought, this sudden plunge into confusion. She said, ‘Is your wife here, Professor? Perhaps it would be best if she—’

  ‘My wife died two years ago,’ he said, stony expression unchanged.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’

  ‘Your information,’ he said impatiently. ‘What have you discovered?’

  ‘I haven’t come about Freyja,’ she said carefully. ‘I’ve come to see you about Gudrun, Professor Kite.’ She took out the picture of the dead girl and showed it to him. ‘This is your daughter Gudrun, is it?’

  ‘Yes?’ He looked puzzled. ‘What about her?’

  ‘I’m very sorry to have to give you bad news. Gudrun was discovered dead this morning on her boat. It seems she suffered a fatal accident during the night. We believe she suffocated as a result of a faulty heater.’

  His eyes widened, fixed disconcertingly on Kathy. ‘I . . .’ He stopped, then tried again, ‘That . . . is not possible.’

  ‘I’m afraid it is. I saw her myself. We believe she died quite peacefully in her sleep.’

  ‘Orgg . . .’ The choking sound of protest seemed to fight its way out of his throat of its own accord while he continued staring at Kathy, who began to think that he was suffering an attack of some kind. Then he lurched to his feet and stumbled across the room and out of the door.