Thirty-Nine
Once again, things moved fast – ‘like shit off a shiny shovel’, as Imran might poetically have put it – and the team was assembled in the conference room within forty minutes of Jacqui Cutler’s phone call.
The set-up was much the same as it had been first thing the day before except that, if anything, DI Amar Chopra seemed even more unhappy at being sidelined.
He was certainly glaring at Miller more fiercely than he had first time round.
The moment Miller had sat himself down – while Susan Akers was still making sure the necessary tech was working – he leaned across to Sara Xiu.
‘Quick word, Posh …’
‘What?’
‘You need to arrest Jeff, or rather you need to tell your friend at the Sexual Offences Unit to arrest him.’ He could see that Xiu didn’t immediately know who he was talking about. ‘Jeff. The bouncer from the King’s Head.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he sucks aniseed balls.’
‘What?’
‘Trust me. He sucks—’
‘Are you feeling all right, Miller?’
‘I smelled it on his breath about an hour ago. That’s what Sania Malik could smell. She thought it was Pernod, because Pernod tastes of aniseed. That’s the “fancy French drink” she couldn’t remember the name of—’
‘OK then, everyone …’ Akers said.
Miller continued, talking low and fast. ‘Look, I know it sounds daft and it’s completely circumstantial, and it might well come to nothing anyway, but “don’t call me a bouncer” Jeff also happens to tick the “big” and “bald” boxes, so it seems to me it’s well worth nicking him …
possession of drugs would be my first suggestion …
and getting a DNA sample. It certainly can’t hurt, and in fact I’m so confident that I’m willing to make a small wager with you that his DNA will match with the traces on Sania’s clothes.
How about … a packet of Jammie Dodgers, every day for a month? ’
‘One packet,’ Xiu whispered. ‘On one day.’
‘You drive a hard bargain, Posh Gravy,’ Miller said.
‘Right then.’ Akers waited until she had everyone’s attention.
‘As you know, another video has been sent by the person or persons holding Justin Cutler. His mother passed this information on to DS Miller’ – Miller gave a small wave of acknowledgement, earning himself another hard stare from Amar Chopra for his trouble – ‘before forwarding the video to us. So let’s have a look … ’
She pressed Play and all heads turned towards the screen.
‘I think we can all agree that’s a bit of a turn-up,’ Akers said, when the video had finished.
She looked across at Miller, who nodded his agreement, though actually he was the only one around the table who was not surprised, having already been told by the hostage’s mother what the kidnapper’s demands were.
‘I’ve told Google to gather up all the crews and start getting it together,’ she’d said to him on the phone.
‘I don’t think you should do anything hasty,’ Miller had said.
‘I don’t give a stuff what you think, Miller. It’s what they want. If this is what it takes to get Justin home, so be it.’
‘Talk about hitting Jacqui Cutler where it hurts,’ Sullivan said now.
‘Again, please.’ Chopra nodded towards Akers’s laptop. ‘The video.’
If the DCI was a little peeved at being told what to do, she didn’t make it obvious, though Miller saw it in the look she threw his way before running the video a second time.
Chopra leaned forward, eyes narrowed, as though his vast experience and unique insight into the mind of a kidnapper might enable him to pick up on something that had gone un-noticed first time round. The kidnapper wandering carelessly into shot, perhaps, or blurting out his address.
Addressing the camera and, by extension, his mother directly, Justin Cutler spoke calmly and with remarkable composure, considering that he was heavily bruised and tied to a chair.
‘Hiya, Mum. Just so you know, I’m OK and, all things considered, I’m being treated pretty well.
So there’s no need to worry. I know there’s a few bruises, but don’t panic, because I won’t get hurt again as long as you do what they want you to do.
Just remember, no police and there will be no problem, and I’ll be back with you very soon if you follow instructions. ’
‘It’s not the most original script ever,’ Miller said.
Chopra shushed him.
‘So, Mum … here’s the thing. If you want to see me again in one piece, as opposed to several much smaller pieces, you need to hand over all the drugs that are currently in your possession and in the possession of everyone who works for you.
All of them, OK? Every vial of ketamine and every bottle of pills.
Every grain of heroin, every ounce of coke and every single leaf from every single weed plant on every weed farm you’ve got.
’ Justin took a deep breath, then leaned even closer to camera, as he had presumably been told to do.
‘That’s it, that’s all there is to it. You do that, you hand over all the drugs you’ve got and they send me home. It’s not difficult, Mum …’
‘It’s not difficult and she’s happy to do it,’ Miller said.
‘Happy?’ Sullivan asked. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Happy-ish. She told me she’s already started making the arrangements.’
‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea,’ Chopra said.
‘That’s what I told her.’
Chopra seemed anything but pleased that he and Miller agreed about something. ‘I think I should talk to her.’
‘She’s comfortable dealing with me,’ Miller said. ‘Like I told you last time, we have history.’
‘Right,’ Chopra said, ‘and I have experience, specifically when it comes to dealing with a kidnapper’s demands.’ He looked to Akers. ‘It’s a very delicate process.’
Miller nodded. ‘Course it is, mate. Far too delicate for a hairy-arsed homicide detective like me to handle.’ He saw Chopra about to cut in, but didn’t give him the chance. ‘I know that’s not what you said, but it’s obviously what you meant.’
The man from the Kidnap Unit didn’t deny it.
‘You think what you do is more important than what I do, don’t you?’ Miller turned to look at Xiu and Akers. He was even happy to include Tim Sullivan. ‘Than what we all do.’
‘OK, since you mention it, yes. I do think that.’
‘Are you being serious?’ Akers said.
‘You cheeky sod,’ Sullivan said.
‘Tosser,’ Xiu hissed.
Miller stared, open-mouthed, at Xiu, then turned to Chopra. ‘You’d best go steady, mate,’ he said. ‘You get her wound up, you’re heading for a world of pain.’
‘This is how it works,’ Chopra said. ‘By the time you and your lot are involved in anything, someone is already dead. That’s tragic, obviously, profoundly tragic, but they’re already dead.
A life has been lost, don’t you get that?
When my unit is assigned to a case, there’s a life that can still be saved, which is why what we do is more important.
Not a lot more important, but a little bit.
That’s not difficult to understand, is it? ’
‘Yeah, but hang on,’ Miller said. ‘What’s to say that the next killer we catch wouldn’t have gone on to kill others, maybe loads of others? We might have saved hundreds of lives without even knowing it.’
‘So you spend all your time chasing potential serial killers, do you?’
‘It’s possible.’
‘Has Blackpool ever even had a serial killer?’
‘George Smith,’ Xiu said immediately. ‘AKA the Brides in the Bath Killer. He was hanged for the murders of three women in 1915, after his final victim was discovered in a boarding house on Regent Road.’
Miller turned to Chopra, ready to gloat, but Xiu hadn’t finished and continued to trot out the details of notorious local killers like some morbid AI bot.
‘Stephen Akinmurele, the so-called Cul-de-Sac Killer, who murdered as many as seven elderly people in Blackpool between 1995 and 1998 and killed himself before he could be brought to trial.’
‘Boom!’ Miller said. ‘Who can say how many lives were saved by the dedicated homicide detectives who nicked those two charmers?’
‘We should move on,’ Akers said. ‘We need to settle on the best way forward, now that the victim’s mother wishes to accede to the demands of his kidnappers.’
There was a brief knock at the door and Tony Clough stepped in brandishing a sheaf of papers.
He handed them to Akers, announcing that they were copies of the audio/visual forensic report on the first video which had just been emailed through.
The DCI glanced through the topmost page, and shook her head as though none the wiser.
She was muttering ‘Sibelius’ as she began passing copies around the table.
Miller knew the sort of work the A/V lab would have been doing.
If they were hugely lucky, they might have been able to identify the bells at a particular church being rung in the background, or the tones of a specific ice-cream van.
He was not holding out a lot of hope and, given the speed with which they needed to find the location where the hostage was being held, was not convinced that any such information would be massively useful.
It’s somewhere not a million miles from St Cuthbert’s …
It’s on a Mr Whippy route …
He read through the report and saw that they had isolated, then amplified what had been the faintest of background noises on the first video.
They had worked out what the noise was. Moreover, thanks to the particular tastes of one of the lab technicians, they had eventually been able to identify it.
‘Bugger me!’ Miller hadn’t meant to say it quite so loudly, but became aware that everyone around the table was looking at him. He said, ‘I know where Justin Cutler is.’