She emphasised that it was urgent but had been waiting on hold for eight minutes. Now DCC Hughes was asking her for information that was available in the notes he had in front of him. Look, sir, she said, we need the warrant right now or they can’t detain her at Miami.
Where was Fuentecilla found? In the house of a woman called Susan Grierson. The woman who passed herself off as Susan Grierson is travelling as Abigail Gomez and lands in Miami in twenty minutes. She’s taking a connection to Ecuador with the children and this is our last chance to detain her.
Is Susan Grierson from Helensburgh?
Yes, sir, but Abigail Gomez is not Susan Grierson.
But Susan Grierson is from Helensburgh?
Morrow hesitated. Yes, Susan Grierson is, but this isn’t Susan Grierson.
Did she call herself Susan Grierson? Yes.
Did she live in Susan Grierson’s house? Yes.
In your notes you’ve said several people identified her as Susan Grierson and she seems to have detailed information about the local area.
Morrow had put that in to draw Hughes’ attention to how well briefed Grierson/Gomez was, how professional she was. She’d meant him to realise that these were serious professional people, that they should move urgently to detain them.
So, DCC Hughes continued, voice close to the receiver, his breath buffeting her ear, realistically, she could be local?
Morrow shut her eyes. She bit her tongue. In desperation she began to tap her knee with her forefinger, because she understood then. If the case was local, Police Scotland would get the Injury Claims 4 U money. But all of the money would go to the Met if a connection was made with the London case through Miami, through Abigail and Vicente and Maria Arias.
Morrow had thought that the set up was shoddy. The body was dumped in the house, the alcohol wipes left a residue, even the semen sample was badly applied to the body. But it seemed to her now that it was less slapdash than cynical. Whoever she was, Gomez hadn’t just killed Roxanna, got the kids out and implicated some hapless locals. She’d written a script for the police, constructing a pursuable case against the Fraser cousins. Gomez understood that the police needed an excuse not to spend money chasing her halfway across the world. If they let her go and charged the local boys instead they’d get a case cleared up and a slice of the seven million pounds. A wrongful conviction was in their interests.
‘Sir, this is urgent. We need you to authorise the warrant within the next twenty minutes.’
There was a pause on the line and then Hughes spoke:
‘Look, the Ariases’ assets have been frozen. The Fraud are clawing back all their accounts and deposits.’ His voice dropped to a shamed murmur. ‘Have you got enough evidence to charge either of the Frasers?’
Morrow stopped tapping her knee. She was so angry that she felt her heart rate slow down.
‘Sir,’ she said very carefully, ‘this is exactly what she wants us to do.’
He drew a breath but didn’t speak.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘Just to clarify my position here, Sir: there is insufficient evidence to charge either of the Frasers with this offence. If a case goes against them I’ll be forced to resign and offer my evidence to the defence.’
It was a threat but Hughes knew she was lying. She heard him suck his teeth and then he lied back: ‘I’ll attend to that warrant as a matter of urgency.’
He hung up.