‘I don’t think it’s necessary.’
‘I do.’
‘No. What is necessary is that you go inside and get your daughter ready to leave.’
‘This isn’t helping, protecting me like this. Whatever you’re doing you’re not helping me by hiding things. Can you step back, please? You might be the police, but this is still my property.’
For a couple of seconds Caffery was motionless. Then, without changing his expression, he took one step away. He stood side on to her, facing the house as if that had suddenly diverted his interest from the Audi. Slowly, checking him warily over her shoulder, she studied the area he’d been hiding. There was nothing – nothing odd or out of place. No scratches or dents. No attempt to break the locks. When she was absolutely sure there was nothing she took a step back and simply stood on the driveway, not speaking, not moving, working silently on unknotting this conundrum. It took a moment or two but at last something in her head fitted into place. She crouched, hand on the rain-soaked driveway and peered under the car. Sitting there, like a barnacle, was a dark square shape about the size of a small shoebox.
She jerked upright.
‘It’s OK,’ Caffery said calmly. ‘It’s not a bomb.’
‘Not a bomb? What the hell is it?’
‘It’s a tracking device.’ He made it sound as if it was the usual sort of thing you found attached to the bottom of a family saloon car. ‘Switched off now. Won’t hurt you. Don’t worry – the squad car’ll be here any time. We’ll have to go straight away. Suggest you get your family to—’
‘Oh, Christ.’ She marched inside, down the hallway, until she could see Emily, cross-legged on the floor, smiling at the TV screen. Caffery followed. Janice drew the door closed and turned to him.
‘How the hell did he do it?’ she spoke in a low whisper. ‘A tracking device. When on earth did he have the chance to put that on?’
‘You picked it up from us, didn’t you, yesterday? The forensics team delivered it to the offices at MCIU?’
‘Yes. I signed for it. Cory wanted Emily to get back into it as soon as possible. Didn’t want her to get a problem with it. I didn’t have any idea there was a—’
‘You didn’t stop anywhere on your way to your mother’s?’
‘No. We went straight there. Cory was in his car behind us.’
‘And at your mother’s? What did you do with it there?’
‘I put it in the garage. There’s never been a chance for anyone to get near it.’
Caffery shook his head. There was something shuttered about his eyes that she didn’t understand. ‘Has Emily talked about what happened? In any detail?’
‘No. The woman from CAPIT said not to push it. She said it would come out when Emily was ready. Why? Do you think he had a chance to put it on when he had her?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe.’
‘But your forensics people. If he’d done it then they’d have . . .’ Suddenly she got it. Suddenly she knew why his eyes were so guarded. ‘Oh, my God. Oh my God. You mean your men didn’t check the bloody car properly.’
‘Janice, just get Emily ready, will you?’
‘I’m right. I know I am. I can see it in your face. You think the same thing. He put it on when he – I don’t know – when he crashed the car maybe and they didn’t find it. They didn’t find a bloody tracking device stuck right up under the car. Well, what else did they miss? Did they miss his DNA too?’
‘It was a thorough job. A very thorough job.’
‘A thorough job. A thorough job? Would Martha’s parents think they’d done a “thorough job”? Hmm? If they heard your men swept the car and missed something like that, would they have any faith left in you at all?’ She stopped and took a slight step back. He hadn’t moved but she’d seen something in his face and realized that he wasn’t just riding this thing carelessly, that it was biting him too. ‘I’m sorry,’ she muttered stupidly, holding up a hand in apology. ‘I’m sorry. That wasn’t necessary.’
‘Janice, believe me, you can have no idea just how sorry I am. About all of this.’
35
It took less than an hour for Caffery to get the guilty parties assembled. Both of the MCIU’s briefing rooms were in use so he held the meeting at a desk in the open-plan HOLMES computer room, all the computer inputters trying to get on with their jobs around him. He seated the crime-scene manager and the guy who had driven the Costellos to the house in Peasedown at a low coffee-table towards the edge of the room where the HOLMES girls had their lunch and coffee breaks. DC Prody was there too – at a nearby desk, half listening, half leafing through some paperwork. Paperwork from the jacker case, not from the Kitson review file. Caffery had already checked.
‘Would Martha’s parents think you’d done a thorough job?’ The first person whose wings Caffery really wanted to pin was the crime-scene manager, a thin guy who bore more than a passing resemblance to Barack Obama. His hair was cut short and neat, which made him look too distinguished for this profession, as if he should be a high-level corporate lawyer or a doctor. He’d been the one who’d taken the car into the forensics ‘surgery’ in Southmeads and combed it for the jacker’s DNA. ‘Would they? Hmm? Think you’d been thorough? Would they see the job you did on the Costellos’ Audi and say, “There’s a fine job. We’ve got confidence in this force. They’re pulling out all the stops”?’
The CSM looked back at Caffery stonily. ‘The car was done. From top to bottom. I’ve already told you.’
‘So tell me this. Where’s the “bottom” of a car? Where is the legal bottom of a car in your head? The door sills? The exhaust pipe?’
‘It was checked. There was no tracker on it when it came into my surgery.’
‘Let me tell you a story.’ Caffery sat back in his chair, twirling a pencil in his fingers. He was being an arse, he knew, a showman, but he was furious with the guy and wanted to make a spectacle of him. ‘Back in London when I was on the Murder Squad – the Area Major Investigation Team, as they called it in those days – I knew a forensics guy. He was quite high up. I won’t repeat his name, because if I did you might have heard of him. Now, some muppet in Peckham had offed his wife. We didn’t know where the body was but it was sort of clear what had happened – she was missing, he was found trying to hang himself from a tree out on Peckham Rye, and the walls in their flat were covered with blood, including some handprints. Now, both Mr and Mrs Muppet had form, drugs stuff, so their dabs were on file – you can see where I’m going with this, can’t you?’
‘Not really.’
‘I figured I’d get the fingerprints from the wall, match them to the missus and then even if the body never turned up we’d at least have the makings of a case to pass to the CPS. So the flat’s been photographed, et cetera, and now my forensics guy’s got a free rein. He can do whatever it takes to get a nice print off the wall. Some of the prints are up high – still don’t know how they got there, if maybe the husband was lifting her up or what, but somehow the poor unfortunate woman got her hands up almost eight feet in the air. Well, as you know, the science boys are supposed to carry tread-plates – but on this occasion my man’s left them somewhere, or used them all up, or whatever. So, he sees this pine chest, with a TV on top of it, about a foot away from the prints he wants. He pulls it out of the corner, stands on it, gets the dabs off the wall and pushes the chest back. Bingo – they belong to Mrs Muppet. Except two days later a relative’s clearing up the flat and notices a nasty smell coming from – you guessed it – the trunk. When it’s opened the wife’s body’s in there, and on the carpet under it is blood, with a mark, in blood, where the trunk’s been pulled out and pushed back. When we go back to the forensics guy what does he do?’