11.

We arrest no one.

We do go down to Red Dragon Systems. Myself, Lampley, someone from the Fraud Squad, plus a couple of uniforms for good measure. Peters and Cooper are both there, scared at finding themselves surrounded by cops and marched off to Cathays under caution.

But not Kureishi. He went missing in about late June. Hasn’t been in to work. Not responding to messages left at his home address, on his mobile or on his IM accounts.

We start to do the basics, of course. Interview Peters and Cooper. Seize computers from Red Dragon, including the machine that belonged to Kureishi. Start to check personal bank accounts.

We don’t get far. When we start to enter Kureishi’s details on the PNC database, a basic cross-check flags up a case of possible interest. Two weeks ago, Devon and Cornwall police were called to a small rural property which was rented out in the summer months. The owner, there to do a bit of end-of-season DIY, found, along with the wasp nests and the leaf-filled gutter, the body of an Asian man. The corpse was duct-taped to a chair, his hands hacked off. There were no other signs of violence, meaning that the man was left to bleed to death.

I’ve seen the crime scene photos. The man’s brown face has gone a kind of ash grey. His eyes are open and his mouth pulled back in an expression of mild astonishment. It’s as though he saw something, while dying, which caused him a mild, detached, almost philosophical amusement. A last wry chuckle at a fading world.

I know not to read too much into these expressions. They arise not as the result of emotion, but of physiognomy, the body hardening, then softening, into its final shape. But, either way, I like the pictures. Have them printed in full color. Pin them up around my desk.

The pool of blood on the man’s knees, thighs and floor has turned a deep rust brown, like the shadows in a forest of autumn beech.

We check the corpse’s DNA against samples collected from Kureishi’s home and workplace. Also drive Peters and Cooper down to Exeter to confirm the ID. It’s him. What’s more, Kureishi’s work computer contains copies of the Trojan horse software installed at the superstore. The other Red Dragon computers are clean.

The forged ‘Hayley Morgan’ letter received by Social Services matches the paper, envelope, printer and toner ink used by Red Dragon.

Our fraud officers check, very discreetly, some other corporate addresses where Kureishi did consultancy work. They check five computers at which he was known to have worked. All five are infected with the same Trojan horse. Three of those computers are able to access the payroll systems of the companies in which they are located.

These things arouse a flurry of activity. A meeting is held jointly between the Devon and Cornwall Major Crime Unit, the Serious Fraud Office, SOCA and ourselves. We are represented by DI Mick Adams of our Fraud unit, Dennis Jackson and myself.

I’ve never been in one of these things before: big beasts loping around a carcass, figuring out their dominance hierarchy. I’m only here as a little courtesy from Jackson, who recognizes my role in connecting Kureishi to the fraud.

The man from the SFO, a pinched, black-suited man, is the first to fold his hand.

‘The size of the fraud is perhaps large enough,’ he says. ‘We’re not really equipped to handle frauds of less than a million or so, but this may pass muster on that account. On the other hand, we have to ask, is this case likely to be of widespread public concern? Does it call for our specialist knowledge? I have to say, I think we might prefer to leave the matter in your, no doubt capable, hands.’

The no doubt capable hands round the table look at the SFO guy in much the same way as they’d study a Bangkok ladyboy in full regalia. Appalled disbelief.

Jackson, taking charge, says, ‘OK.’

‘Our main concern, really, is with the smooth functioning of financial markets.’

The SFO guy looks set to go on, explaining why the case is beneath him, but Jackson just says again, ‘OK. Thank you for coming,’ and gestures at the door.

The SFO guy halts, looks bemused, then gathers up his papers and leaves.

No one says anything, but no one needs to. If the atmosphere in the room could be distilled down to a single word, that word would begin with a ‘w’ and rhyme with banker.

That leaves us, our West country cousins, and SOCA. The Devon and Cornwall force are represented by a DCI, Jackson’s counterpart, and her gopher. The DCI, Mary Widdicombe, says, ‘This isn’t our fraud, but it is our murder. We also recognize that the murder, almost certainly, arose as a consequence of the fraud. We don’t care how you,’ she makes a gesture that includes the rest of us, ‘investigate the fraud. We just need to know that your inquiry will have the investigation and prosecution of this murder as a central objective. And we will need to have one of our officers seconded to the core investigation team.’

Widdicombe – dark brown hair worn long, blue eyes, but a strong jaw, strong demeanor – holds her gaze steady as she says the last bit, but we all know that her last remarks are aimed at SOCA.

The senior SOCA representative here is a man called Adrian Brattenbury. He seems perfectly sensible, but the agency has strong linkages with the security services and is viewed as more than a little suspect by many police officers. SOCA likes to talk about its ability to ‘disrupt organized crime’ and prides itself on its intelligence-led investigative approach. Which is all good. Organized crime needs to be disrupted and a stupidity-led approach is unlikely to pay dividends. On the other hand, good intelligence tends to become all about the preservation of sources, while any competent police investigation has to end with doors being kicked down and bad guys being led away in handcuffs. For simple coppers, like Jackson, Widdicombe and myself, it’s hard to see how organized crime is being disrupted if we don’t see the heads of major crime organizations being successfully prosecuted in a British courtroom.

But still. Widdicombe hasn’t exactly folded her hand, but she’s taking a pace back from the carcass. That leaves Brattenbury and Jackson still facing off.

‘I’m with Mary,’ says Jackson. ‘Fraud on this scale – not to mention potentially complicated IT issues – that’s not something we particularly want to handle. But we need a prosecution out of this. A Cardiff resident was murdered. The frauds took place here. We need to know that the perpetrators will be brought to justice and in a timely manner.’

Brattenbury has dark curly hair, a bright pink shirt, charcoal pinstripe suit and an air of intelligence, which I like. He says, ‘Yes, of course. Look, our objectives are the same as yours. We want to put criminals behind bars.’

‘We’d need staff on the team. Seconded to you, but reporting to me.’

‘Yes. Yes, we do usually work with local staff. We need to. Our regional offices are very lean. Obviously, on a live case, we have to be very careful about who knows what, we’re very rigorous about protecting our officers, but—’

‘No.’ Jackson isn’t loud, but he doesn’t have to be. ‘No. That phrase, that attitude. It’s a no. Mary’s got a murder. I’ve got a fraud at least, maybe a manslaughter as well. If you boys and girls at SOCA want a piece of this, it’s on our terms. And those terms do not include cutting me or Mary out of the loop. We’re not negotiating here. And by the way, Mary and I are detective chief inspectors. We know something about protecting our bloody officers and we’re not about to take lessons from you.’

He looks at Widdicombe, who nods once, briefly.

They both look at Brattenbury, who clears his throat and says, ‘I’m sure we can sort something out.’

Jackson says, ‘We are sorting something out. If you need to make a call, the office next door is free.’

Brattenbury heads off with his phone. To me, Jackson says, ‘Fiona, get us some drinks, would you?’

I take orders and go off to fetch coffees. I’m aware that I’m representing the South Wales force and am proud that my coffee-making skills have been called upon. I seek to excel.

By the time I return, all is sweetness and light.

Jackson, Adams, Widdicombe, Brattenbury and Widdicombe’s gopher are standing by the conference room window getting a guided tour of central Cardiff from Jackson’s stabbing index finger. I’m not welcome on his tour bus. ‘OK, Fiona, thank you,’ meaning that my services are no longer required.

I leave.

And that’s it. I hear nothing further. As I understand things, Mick Adams from our Fraud Squad is seconded to the SOCA inquiry. Presumably someone of similar rank from Devon and Cornwall. Presumably Jackson and Widdicombe get what they need. But nothing filters down to me.

I’m only partly sorry. Whatever else this case may be, it’s going to involve a lot of complex computer analysis, a lot of painstaking financial audits. That kind of work is tailor-made for SOCA – they inherited the whole of what used to be the National Hi-tech Crime Unit and they have forensic financial skills second only to those of the SFO. And none of that appeals to me. Much as I relish Kureishi’s exsanguinated corpse, much as I like the odor of organized crime that floats over the entire investigation, I’m not interested in computers or financial accounts. I like the objects of the inquiry, but not its probable methods. I go back to my busy little detective constable life, being given orders by people I don’t always respect, executing those orders, writing up a completed action report and repeating the process. We have no interesting murders in stock at the moment, but we have our normal helping of assault, rape and violent stupidity. It’s a thin diet, but I get by.

The one real highlight: I point out an anomaly in the case so far to Dennis Jackson. The superstore fraud involved two unwitting accomplices: Adele Gibson and Hayley Morgan. They were excellent choices for the fraud in one way, because they were real people, with real addresses. The audit software used to detect payroll frauds would never have flashed an alert faced with these names.

Yet, I don’t think the names were chosen by accident. Hayley Morgan was an isolated stroke victim with some cognitive impairments. Adele Gibson is learning impaired and relies on a social worker for help with basic household finance and the like. People like that don’t always have the tools needed to challenge strange behavior in their finances – and until the last few months, they hadn’t actually been made any worse off by the scam. They were carefully chosen targets. Chosen by someone in a position to pick.

I nudge Jackson. He nudges the Fraud Squad. They discover that Sajid Kureishi’s sister-in-law, Razia Riaz, worked as a receptionist at Cardiff Social Care Services in Grangetown. Discover that she had interfered with the flow of correspondence in order to keep care workers in the dark.

She’s arrested and charged with fraud. Under interrogation, she admitted that she had, a year and a half back, obtained the signatures needed from Adele Gibson and Hayley Morgan to gain access to their bank accounts. I wasn’t present at the arrest or the interrogation, but Gethin Stephens, the new Fraud Squad DI, told me that she was a nasty piece of work, venomous and vindictive, and with no apparent remorse for the consequences of her actions.

The CPS are considering a manslaughter charge and I hope they go ahead.

And that’s the story as we now have it. Kureishi found a way to penetrate corporate computers. His sister-in-law found a way to generate appropriate payroll dummies for the fraud. The pair of them obtained some false identity documents and set up a bank account which they used to channel their money. The first of them is dead, the second awaiting prosecution. We don’t know quite why Kureishi went on the run and probably never will, but he must have got scared that his partners in organized crime were getting tired of him. He stole what he could. Ran when he could. And got killed anyway.

That’s all I really know. I do my regular work and try to remember that I have a life.

When Buzz asks if I have a swimsuit, I say I have no swimsuits but two bikinis. He asks if my passport is valid. I say that I’ve checked and it is.

And strange to say, I find I’m excited by the prospect of holiday. I’ve never felt that before. I’ve normally avoided holiday completely or approached it with a kind of anxiety. But this feels different. And when Buzz says, ‘Are you looking forward to it?’, I say, ‘I am, I really am.’ When he laughs at me, I laugh too.