Chapter 46
As the briefing breaks up, Fraser leans towards Lauren. ‘-Foxleigh Manor have just emailed. They need the name cards for the tables; I’m going to have to nip home and get them.’
‘What, now? We’re up to our ears! They’ll have to wait till tomorrow.’
‘Apparently we should have delivered them two weeks ago.’ Fraser raises his eyebrows.
‘Look, I agree it’s unreasonable, but given they almost fucked up the entire wedding by double--booking us, I’d rather not piss them off over something as small as name cards.
I’ll interview Carrie Finder on my way back – kill two birds with one stone. ’
Lauren closes her eyes for a second. The wedding planner at Foxleigh Manor takes days to reply to her perfectly straightforward emails about things like parking and room rates, yet she expects Lauren and Fraser to respond immediately. ‘I guess we don’t have a choice.’
‘It’ll take an hour, tops.’ The corners of Fraser’s eyes are pinched, and Lauren wonders if he’s keeping something back. At this stage, it wouldn’t surprise her if the entire venue had burned down.
‘Maybe it’s an omen,’ Lauren says, deliberately bleakly. -Fraser’s face makes her smile. ‘Go on, then. But be quick. I’ve given the others a three-line whip and they won’t be happy if they know I’ve let you swan off to—’
‘—save our wedding?’ Fraser raises an eyebrow. ‘May I remind you that you were the one who wanted the big dress—’
‘It’s not that big!’ Despite everything, Lauren laughs.
‘—and a hundred of our nearest and dearest? I was all for whisking you off to a deserted beach with a registrar and a couple of hotel guests as witnesses.’
‘To be fair, it’s my mother’s fault the guest list is so big.’ Lauren groans. ‘But you’re right.’
‘Of course I’m right.’ Fraser grins at her. He turns to leave, then hesitates. ‘That list you gave Kenric for vetting . . .’
‘What about it?’
‘He’s had the first tranche checked and the results are in HOLMES. It’s probably nothing, but . . .’ He rubs the side of his nose, then looks at her for a second or two before continuing. ‘Matt never went through vetting.’
‘Our Matt? Matt Draper?’
‘The forms were posted out to him, but he never sent them back, and it was never chased up. He had a basic PNC check when he applied for the job, but none of the checks around debt, family, political affiliations and so on.’ Fraser pauses. ‘And he was in a uniform role in 2019.’
A chill runs through Lauren. ‘What are you saying?’
‘I’m not saying anything . . .’ Fraser checks himself. ‘Okay, I guess I am saying something. I’m saying we should look at him more closely.’
‘Matt’s straight as a die.’ Lauren shakes her head. ‘You’ve worked with him longer than I have: you know he’s sound.’
‘Remember when he went on about extremism being nuanced? That even in an organization like New Dawn, there would be people at both ends of a spectrum?’
‘He was playing devil’s advocate, that’s all.’
‘It sounded as though he was defending them.’
‘Matt’s not a fascist!’
‘I’m not saying he is, I’m just saying we should look at him.’ Fraser keeps a level gaze on her. ‘You know as well as I do that some of the biggest threats hide in plain sight.’
Damian Fletcher is so keen to distance himself from New Dawn that Lauren has to ask him to slow down, worried the recording won’t capture his chaotic half-confession.
He did bury the body, but only because he’d been told Golding had died in an accident, and then only because Damian had felt intimidated by Alan.
‘Alan the secondary school computer teacher?’ Lauren clarifies.
There’s a beat, then Damian nods. ‘Yeah.’
‘Your brother described Alan as “around five foot seven, with weedy arms and a beer belly like he’s swallowed a ball”.’ Lauren looks up from her notes. ‘Not exactly Tyson Fury.’
‘No, but . . .’ Damian looks at his solicitor, but it’s clear he’s on his own with this one. ‘He’s a Nazi, though, isn’t he? That’s not something you wanna mess with.’
‘Ah! So you knew that at the time he asked you to dispose of the victim’s body, then?’
‘No . . .’ Damian’s eyes flick rapidly in their sockets as he tries to match up the truth with the version he’s currently trying to tell Lauren. ‘Like I said before, I don’t know nothing about this New Dawn.’
‘Then why were you intimidated by Alan?’
‘I just . . .’ Damian blinks. ‘I got a sense.’
‘Is that right?’ Lauren leans forward, dropping her voice as though she’s about to impart a secret. ‘I’ve got a sense right now, Damian. I can sense you’re going to be charged with a very serious indictable offence.’
Sure enough, the on-call Crown Prosecution Service lawyer approves charges for Damian and Peter Fletcher, both of whom are remanded in custody and denied their right to phone calls on the grounds that it could jeopardize the police investigation.
‘On balance, I’m inclined to believe they aren’t in New Dawn’s inner circle,’ Lauren tells Fraser, when they’re both back in the major crime office.
‘They’re too thick, for one. But they’re only one degree of separation from Alan Ellis, who has frustratingly behaved entirely non-suspiciously since he was put under surveillance. ’
‘It’s only been a few hours!’ Fraser laughs. ‘Give it time.’
‘I don’t want time; I want him nicked. Did you get the name cards across to Foxleigh Manor?’
‘I did.’
‘And did you—’
‘—tell them the boss isn’t happy?’ Fraser gives a mock salute. ‘You bet.’
Mention of the boss reminds Lauren of Carrie’s text to Jamie. ‘What did Carrie Finder have to say?’
‘That Golding had worked late a few times to clear a backlog left by his predecessor, and Adam Bennington had mentioned to Carrie that he’d done a good job.
’ Fraser sits on the edge of his desk. ‘She claims to have messaged Golding in her capacity as a wellbeing manager, but, reading between the lines, I think she had a bit of a crush on him and she saw it as an excuse to use his personal number.’
That fits, Lauren thinks, as she remembers the way Carrie became flustered in front of Fraser. One of those socially awkward women who don’t know what to do with themselves when they’re around a good-looking man.
There are only a handful of officers left in the office now, half-heartedly updating actions and glancing hopefully in -Lauren’s direction. No one has bothered to close the blinds, and the pitch-black night is streaked with lights from passing cars.
‘Forensics said they had an update on the rags we seized from Safeguard Solutions.’ Lauren looks around the room. ‘Did they send it in?’
‘Do you want the good news or the bad?’ Kenric says.
‘Both.’
‘The good news is we got a DNA hit on one of them. Chris Morley, white male, previous for violent disorder.’
‘That’s great! What’s the bad news?’
‘The evidence bag with the rags in has a tear in it.’
‘What? How?’ Lauren groans. Where forensics are involved, the chain of evidence is everything. A compromised bag means the defence can argue the sample is contaminated and refuse for it to be presented in court.
‘The property store’s been rammed lately,’ Sonya says. ‘Someone must have shoved something sharp against it.’
Lauren looks at her exhausted team and makes a decision.
‘Right, everyone, go home, get some kip, and we’ll pick this up in the morning.
’ She holds up a finger, keeping them back until she’s finished talking.
‘I’m sure I don’t have to remind you of the importance of keeping everything within the team.
’ She makes eye contact with each of them in turn: Kenric, Sonya, Fraser, Matt.
‘Don’t even talk to your partners: got it? ’
‘Yes, boss.’ The response comes as one.
Lauren lets them leave, then she turns off the lights and locks up, and walks with Fraser to the staff car park. It’s almost empty, only Matt still there. He’s sitting in his car, one side of his face illuminated by the phone he’s holding to his ear.
‘Two secs,’ Lauren tells Fraser, and she walks over to Matt’s car.
When Lauren had arrived on major crime, she had instantly picked up on how well-respected Matt was by the rest of the team, and she’s seen for herself since then what a good detective he is. Matt hangs up as Lauren approaches.
A good detective . . . but is there another side to him?
‘I forgot to ask if there’d been an update on the cloned cards,’ she says, as Matt gets out of his car. ‘You said you were speaking to financial investigations.’
‘I updated HOLMES earlier – did you not see it?’
‘Sorry, no.’ She had, but it had been the first thing that came to mind to say as she walked over.
‘One of the cloned cards was used to buy a burner phone from a kiosk at Sainsbury’s.
The CCTV isn’t great, but the woman who made the purchase was wearing a distinctive coat and the security guard was able to find her on the outside camera.
He’s sending through a still of her getting into a red Fiat 500. No reg number, but it’s a start.’
Matt’s phone rings. Lauren waits a beat, but Matt silences his phone without looking at it. ‘Okay,’ Lauren says eventually. ‘See what VODS throws up on red Fiat 500s in the local area.’ She’s stalling. Just do it, Lauren! ‘Hey, Matt?’
‘Yes?’
‘You were on shift in 2019, weren’t you?’
‘Yeah. Team four. Good times, although I couldn’t do it nowadays. Night shifts almost killed me.’ He rubs at a mark on the car window.
‘Did you have one of the thin blue line patches?’
‘We all did. I’ve still got mine somewhere.’
‘Matt . . .’ Lauren pauses. ‘There aren’t any vetting details on your HR file.’
He frowns. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘You never returned the form to recruitment.’
‘No, I mean, I don’t understand the relevance. Why are you telling me this? I’ve been in the job for over thirty years; does it really matter what paperwork was or wasn’t done when I joined?’
It does if it would have revealed something you didn’t want people to know, Lauren thinks. ‘I guess not,’ she says lightly. ‘The system wasn’t as robust back then, I suppose.’
Matt’s jaw drops a fraction. ‘You think I’m connected to this job, don’t you?’
‘No. That’s absolutely not what I think.’ Is it?
‘Then why the third degree?’
‘Everyone’s being checked.’ Lauren tries for a smile, but it feels fake, even to her. ‘No stone unturned, right?’
‘Right.’ Matt stares at her for a second, then he gets behind the wheel and slams the door.