‘My god-daughter nearly died,’ I said instead.
‘She wasn’t meant to get hurt. She wasn’t even meant to be there.’
‘Who were the others, Hannah? We know about Laura, but who were the others who were there?’
She shook her head. ‘I’m not going to tell you. I don’t care what you do. He deserved this. So he’s had a fright? Look what I had to go through.’
‘If anything happens to him, Hannah, you will be in a whole world more trouble than you’re in already.’
‘Nothing is going to happen to him,’ she said. But her eyes were darting around again and she was rubbing her scraped arm, unaware that she was doing it.
Hannah didn’t believe herself, either.
And that worried the hell out of me.
Chapter 87
Adrian Tuttle rewound the video clip again.
I got him to pause it and enhance the image. It was the first video they had sent and I had to admit that Hannah did a pretty good acting job. I got Adrian to split the screen and then played the second clip. I freeze-framed it. Zoomed in on her arm.
‘See that, Adrian?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ he said. Like I said, he was good at spot-the-difference.
Wendy Lee was passing and leaned over. ‘Contusions on her arm in the second video. Not in the first.’
‘And what does that tell us?’
‘That she was faking being tied up the first time round and not the second.’
The memory of her rubbing her arm just a short while ago flicked into my mind. Her arm was definitely sore.
‘So what changed? What was it?’
‘Have you found the other girl yet?’
I shook my head. I had called Sam to meet me at the student accommodation block. Laura Skelton wasn’t there. Her wardrobe was empty, clothes hangers on the floor. Empty drawers left open. It looked as though she had packed a bag and left. Hurriedly. Sam was out trying to track her down. I didn’t hold out much hope.
I let the second tape play on.
Hannah looked at the camera, her voice trembling. ‘They want you to know,’ she said, ‘that this bomb I am wearing can be triggered remotely. Any attempt to do anything other than what you are instructed to do and it will be detonated. Likewise if you attempt to deliver fake diamonds. They will be examined and if they are not genuine the device will be detonated. If police are there again as they were this morning, the device will be detonated.’
She let the paper fall to the floor as tears welled in her large, terrified eyes.
‘Please help me,’ she added in a desperate whisper.
The screen faded to blackness again.
Hannah was begging for help – that was genuine. She believed that they had strapped explosives to her and would kill her if we didn’t comply with their instructions.
Something had happened between yesterday and today.
What?
My mobile phone rang. I looked at the caller ID and answered it.
‘What have you got for me, Suzy?’ I listened and nodded. ‘Sit on him,’ I said. ‘I’ll be right there.’
I clicked my phone shut and stood up, grabbing my jacket.
‘Something happening?’ asked Wendy Lee.
‘Laura Skelton just had a visitor. One of the rugby guys from Friday night.’
Adrian Tuttle stood up. ‘You want some backup?’ he said. He was being serious.
‘No, you’re all right,’ I answered. ‘Suzy and I should be able to handle it.’
‘What would you do if he turned nasty, Adrian?’ asked Wendy Lee. ‘Distract him with some origami?’
‘I’ve got some moves,’ he said. Striking a pose. He looked like an emaciated heron.
‘Just work the data,’ I said. ‘Something’s there. Something’s not right.’
Chapter 88
Detective Inspectors Kirsty Webb and Natalie James jumped out of their parked car and slammed the doors behind them.
An ambulance was pulled up outside the house that they had been about to call at and a couple of police cars were parked beside it. Lights flashing. Crime-scene tape about to cordon off the area.
Kirsty Webb felt a sinking feeling in her gut again as they hurried up to the door. She always seemed to be one step behind on this case. A couple of uniformed officers were standing outside. Kirsty and DI James showed them their warrant cards.
‘What’s happened?’
‘You here to see Alistair Lloyd? The surgeon?’ asked one of the uniforms. A petite woman in her mid-twenties.
‘Yes.’
‘You’re too late, I’m afraid. He performed a…’ she hesitated ‘… a minor procedure, then topped himself.’
‘What kind of procedure?’
The other officer grimaced. ‘He cut off one of his fingers with a samurai sword. And then fell on it. The sword, not the finger.’
‘Jesus.’
‘Yeah. There’s quite a bit of blood.’ She nodded at DI James. ‘Your boss has been trying to get hold of you. He’s inside.’
The two DIs, walked into the house. It was a bungalow, almost open-plan. A small hall led into a large lounge-and-kitchen area. Several doors led off it. The one on the far right was open and bursts of bright light flashed from the room behind it.
A medium-sized man, balding, overweight, with a scruffy jacket and a skew-whiff tie came out as they walked over. He rubbed his hand over a chin that was dark with more than just a five o’clock shadow. It made a rasping sound and he shrugged apologetically.
‘I was halfway through my Sunday lunch when I got the call. Slow-roast shoulder of pork. Dauphinoise potatoes. You must be DI Webb?’ He stuck out his hand.
Kirsty shook it. ‘Yeah.’
‘Chief Inspector Holland.’ He turned to DI James. ‘Tried to get hold of you.’
DI James took out her phone and looked at it, unlocking the keyboard. ‘Must have been out of range at the time.’
Holland nodded impassively and turned to Kirsty. ‘And yours? Spoke to your governor at Paddington.’
‘It’s in the car, charging.’
He nodded again. ‘Either way it don’t much amount to a hill of beans, I guess – as your man in the hat once had it.’
‘Sir?’
‘No glory due on this one. Your serious-crime gang are on their way over. But this, as they say, is a done deal. See for yourself if you’ve the stomach for it.’ Holland rubbed his own stomach absent-mindedly, probably regretting starting his lunch at all. He ushered the two DIs into the room.
There was a plain black teak table in front of a window with open venetian blinds, also in black. Matching cabinets stretched left and right along the wall in front of the desk.
A Japanese suit of armour stood in one corner of the room.
There was a chopping block on the desk and a white handkerchief was laid neatly next to it. Beyond that on the desk was a wooden holder. Ceremonial. On the handkerchief a small pool of blood had soaked through. A severed finger lay in the middle of it.
Chapter 89
Alistair Lloyd was lying on the floor.
The samurai sword that should have been sitting in its holder was stuck through the centre of his body. He had toppled sideways and there was blood pooled around him on the floor. A lot of it.
The SOCO photographer took more shots in a quick burst and left the room, leaving the forensic pathologist to go to work.
‘He left a note,’ said Chief Inspector Holland.
‘Typed?’ asked Kirsty Webb, thinking back to Colin Harris’s supposed suicide.
‘Handwritten. And, judging by other materials here, it looks authentic to me. Signed, and fingerprints on the paper, no doubt, which I have every belief will match his own.’
‘Right.’
The CI nodded down the hall to where more white-suited SOCOs were bagging evidence in the kitchen. ‘And we found human remains in his freezer. Individually bagged-up organs.’
‘The Jane Does’?’