Forty-Four
They had arranged to meet in a greasy spoon just behind the prom, and by the time Miller got there Xiu was already tucking in to a full English that would have defeated a sixteen-stone docker with a tapeworm.
It always amazed Miller that someone so slight could put away the amount of food she did, and with such gusto.
It was only one item on a long list of things about Sara Xiu that both mystified and delighted him.
She nodded, chewing, when he sat down, so rather than engage her in conversation, which would have required her to stop forking stodge into her mouth, Miller simply held up his mobile phone so that she could read the text message.
Sorry to say that we had no joy tonight, but we’re chasing down other leads and we’re hopeful. Nothing to indicate that Justin has been harmed. FYI, Barry Cheshire – the man whose house we raided – is NOT the kidnapper. Take my word for that. NOT THE KIDNAPPER.
When Xiu began chewing faster, it was obvious that she was keen to ask all the obvious questions. Miller saved her the trouble.
‘It’s a text I sent Jacqui Cutler late last night.
’ He saw that Xiu was not wholly satisfied, so pressed on.
‘Because she deserved to know what was happening and that we hadn’t found her son.
’ He held up his hands when Xiu pointed a fork at him.
‘OK, so maybe the emojis weren’t strictly necessary, but otherwise it’s pretty standard. ’
Xiu swallowed hard and opened her mouth to ask something else.
‘Because making sure she knows that Cheshire isn’t the person who kidnapped her son is the best way to keep Cheshire safe,’ Miller said.
‘The only way, come to that. She’ll have known whose address we were raiding last night and we all know what happened last time Jacqui and her crew jumped to conclusions.
Barry Cheshire was lucky that time and Darren Grant very much …
wasn’t.’ He watched as Xiu mopped up what was left on her plate with a slice of bread, nodding to indicate that she understood. ‘Looks like you enjoyed that.’
‘The hash browns were overdone and my egg wasn’t quite runny enough,’ she said. ‘Nevertheless, I enjoyed it very much, thank you. I’d still rather have had another half-hour in bed, mind you, so what’s the emergency?’
‘I wanted to talk to you before I talk to Akers,’ Miller said. ‘Before we talk to her, I should say … as a team. As a pair of like-minded and free-thinking police officers, keen as mustard to move an investigation forward with a brilliant, if somewhat radical proposal.’
‘I don’t like it,’ Xiu said.
‘You haven’t heard what it is yet.’
‘I don’t need to.’
Miller ordered tea and a bacon sandwich, then gave Xiu the spiel he’d rehearsed on his way there.
His failure to follow strict protocol – or indeed any accepted protocol – when he’d disco-vered Barry Cheshire in his front room.
The decision to provide the man with a bed for the night after ordering him takeaway pizza and, more importantly, his plan to turn this somewhat unusual situation to their advantage.
The look on Xiu’s face by the time he’d finished told him that he’d probably needed a little more rehearsal.
‘She’s never going to go for it,’ Xiu said.
‘Well, granted, it’s thinking outside the envelope.’
‘It’s a long way outside the envelope,’ Xiu said. ‘It’s in an entirely different postcode from the envelope.’
‘So, what I said about the two of us approaching Akers as a team … ?’
‘I’m just saying, I wouldn’t go for it if I was her.’
Miller had little doubt that one day Xiu would be a DCI, and that sometime thereafter she’d probably be Chief Constable. He wondered if he should start buttering her up straight away, perhaps put in for a pay rise good and early, but decided that now wasn’t the time.
‘Well, there’s only one way to find out,’ he said.
Having wolfed down his bacon sandwich, Miller climbed on to his moped and followed Xiu’s Yamaha to the station.
They stood together for the best part of fifteen minutes beneath an overhang near the station entrance, sheltering from the drizzle and waiting for Susan Akers’s car to appear.
As soon as it did, they jogged across, dodging the puddles and, the instant the DCI had turned her ignition off, they opened the doors and piled in.
A trifle alarmed, Akers stared at Xiu in the passenger seat, then turned to look at Miller in the back. ‘Am I being car-jacked?’
‘You think I’d car-jack a Nissan Micra?’ Miller asked.
‘What do you want, Declan?’
Miller leaned forward and peered between the seats, like a child being driven somewhere exciting and desperate to know when they were going to reach their destination.
He had barely got halfway through his pitch – around the point in the story when the pizzas had been ordered – when Akers raised a hand to stop him in his tracks.
‘He will go to prison,’ she said.
‘I know,’ Miller said.
‘Even if, for reasons I’ve yet to fathom, you didn’t see fit to arrest him, it is going to happen, and as Mr Cheshire seems perfectly happy to admit everything I can’t see any way he stays out of jail. He’s an accessory to kidnapping … at least.’
‘Fine, but just not yet.’
‘Because?’
‘Because we can use him,’ Miller was getting excited and began to gabble. ‘We make him a protected witness and let him work for us. All we need to do is set him up in a safe house.’
‘Why does he need to be in a safe house? If you’ve already told Jacqui Cutler he’s not the kidnapper he shouldn’t be in any danger.’
‘I’ve told her,’ Miller said. ‘But that doesn’t mean Wayne’s necessarily going to get the message.’
Akers thought about that for a few moments. ‘Fine. That makes some sense. It’s about the only thing you’ve said so far that does.’
‘I think you should hear him out, Susan,’ Xiu said.
Miller had to stop himself reaching forward and attempting to high-five his partner.
He was delighted – and oddly moved – that despite the doubts she’d voiced only a short time before in the café, Xiu was choosing to back him.
To be part of the team. He made a promise to himself that he’d never leave a rubber rat on her desk again.
‘“Use him”, you said.’ Akers turned to look at Miller again. ‘Use him how, exactly?’
‘To help us find Battersby, obviously.’
‘Right,’ Akers said. ‘Obviously.’
‘Cheshire knows him. He’s better placed than anyone to work out where he might have gone – what his next move will be.
Even more importantly, Battersby’s in contact with him.
He’s called him once already and if we can try and keep that contact going, get Cheshire to keep him on the hook, we’re in with a shout. ’
‘God knows what Amar Chopra’s going to make of this,’ Akers said.
Miller could not have given the tossiest of tosses what Chopra thought, but he knew that the officer from the Kidnap Unit would need to be brought onside.
However reluctantly. ‘Just spell it out to him,’ he said.
‘This is the best chance we’ve got.’ He paused for dramatic effect. ‘The best chance Justin’s got.’
There was a long silence before the DCI said anything else.
The windows had begun to steam up and Miller fought the urge to draw something obscene in the condensation.
He winked at Xiu when Akers wasn’t looking and Xiu glared at him.
He made a show of looking at his watch.
‘I’ll need to take it higher up,’ Akers said eventually.
Punching the air would have been too showy, and leaning forward to kiss his superior officer might well have caused HR concerns, so Miller contented himself with the humblest of nods and a muttered, ‘Thanks, boss.’
*
Walking briskly into the station a few minutes later, buzzing and ready to get everything organised – presuming the -higher-ups gave the go-ahead – Xiu said, ‘They arrested Jeff the bouncer last night.’
‘I hope they didn’t call him a bouncer,’ Miller said. ‘He gets very upset about that.’
‘I think he was more upset at being arrested.’
‘Bless him.’
‘He’s been bailed, but not before they took a DNA sample. It’s gone to the lab, so let’s see if your theory pans out and we get a match.’ She shook her head. ‘Aniseed balls. Now that is seriously outside the envelope.’
‘What can I tell you?’ Miller said. ‘Sometimes you just need to go with your gut.’
‘It’s a crazy idea.’ Xiu nodded towards Susan Akers, marching purposefully ahead on her way to stick her neck out for them; to try and convince her superiors that a plan hatched by a notoriously unorthodox DS was a good one. ‘Still not as crazy as this one, though.’