Laura was at the vending machines deciding how much sugar to have for breakfast when Jack walked past.
“How was the Isle of Wight?”
She hadn’t noticed that he was on his mobile. He raised a finger.
“Yes, OK, well, will he be back on the wing tomorrow? Ah, day after . . . Yes, it’s in relation to a current investigation. It has no bearing on any conviction he’s in for, no, just background stuff on an old acquaintance . . . If you could, please. Great.”
“Tony Fisher?” Laura guessed.
“The guy’s a pensioner and he took on some 20-year-old wannabe.”
“And I bet he won. You should read his file, Jack. He’s a genuine, old-school psycho.”
Laura collected her chocolate, crisps and can of pop.
“Apparently Tony pinned the kid down and snapped both of his middle fingers so that, and I quote—” Jack put on a gruff, cockney accent—“‘You won’t be able to wank proper for a munff!’”
Laura let out a loud screech. “Is that what Tony sounds like?”
“Probably.”
Jack laughed and they both headed for the squad room. As they walked down the corridor, Anik ran to catch them up.
“What’s the joke?” he panted.
“You had to be there.” said Laura dismissively.
Anik’s face fell.
There were two evidence boards at the front of the squad room now, gradually filling up with information dating all the way back to 1984. Ridley sat at Jack’s desk while Jack led the room. He pinned up three photos with their names scrawled underneath—Harry Rawlins, Joe Pirelli and Terry Miller—and a black silhouette with a big question mark on the face. Pirelli’s and Miller’s photos were mugshots, but Rawlins’s photo was an old newspaper cutting from the opening of a Soho art gallery back in the early eighties. He had a champagne flute to his lips, his head tilted back and his shoulder toward the camera. In truth, it could have been anyone.
“. . . see, on the first Strand underpass job, everyone initially thought that Harry was one of the robbers blown to smithereens, but he wasn’t ’cos he was shot by Dolly Rawlins just over six months later. Speculation was that Harry Rawlins was probably behind the second Strand underpass job, and he was definitely behind the diamond heist. Now, if Dolly Rawlins planned to convert The Grange into a kids’ home, she had to have had at least some capital. I know she was going for funding to do the place up, but she gave Ester Freeman £200,000, in cash, to actually buy the place. Where did she get that from, less than one month out of the nick?”
Ridley raised his hand to bring silence to the room. “Where is all of this going, in relation to our murder victim?”
Jack paused for a moment to think, which Ridley allowed.
“Well, sir, we know the cash found at Rose Cottage is likely to be the cash from the train robbery back in ’95, because of the age and volume of the notes. And because of where it was found. Every police report from ’95 suggests that there’s no way the armed robbers could have got that amount of money out of Aylesbury before the roads were closed and the searches began. At the moment, I’m trying to eliminate the women from having anything to do with the train robbery or our murder victim—but I can’t definitively. Equally, I can’t connect them either. It’s far more likely that they’ll end up being potential witnesses to something, rather than being involved.”
Anik exhaled a sharp, short stream of air from his nostrils, as though mocking the non-committal comment Jack had just made.
“Something to add, Anik?” Ridley asked.
He knew Jack was dawdling on this investigation, which was something he’d deal with when he was good and ready; but the one thing Ridley hated more than anything else was one copper disrespecting another. That’s not what his team stood for and he wouldn’t tolerate such bad manners.
“Get up there, Anik, and tell us what you’ve got to add.”
Anik slowly stepped up to the front of the room, next to Jack.
“Erm . . . Well, Missing Persons has still not given us anything, but I found a . . . erm . . .” He went back to his desk, grabbed his file and raced back to the front of the room. “I’ve been doing some background on John Maynard, the builder who started the conversion work on The Grange for Dolly Rawlins before she died—obviously—and he’s still living in Aylesbury. Also, Jim Douglas, the signalman on duty on the night of the train robbery—I’ve got his current address too. Both of these men have no criminal record and no obvious long-term connection to each other or the women, so, you know, as independent witnesses, they might be useful for us to speak to and see what they recall from the night of the robbery.”
Ridley stood up and, as he walked to the front of the room, Jack and Anik parted like the Red Sea and made room for him to take center stage.
“I’m going to arrange for us to go back to Aylesbury tomorrow to see the scene again. Anik, arrange for us to interview Maynard and Douglas while we’re there. Jack, I’ll get the local station down in Taunton to go and see Connie Stephens. I think you traipsing up and down the country is not a good use of your time.”
Jack’s brain silently went into overdrive. Fuck! He had to go to Burnham-on-Sea to see his Aunt Fran.
Ridley continued, oblivious to Jack’s dilemma. “Today, I need you all back on Missing Persons please—expand the search radius from Aylesbury. Jack, my office.”
Jack shut Ridley’s office door behind him. This was the only other time Ridley’s door was ever closed—when he was in a private meeting. Ridley stood by his expanse of windows, with his back to Jack.
“I don’t need to know exactly where you are all the time, Jack, but I do at least need to know what island you’re on.” Ridley moved behind his desk, stuck his hands deep in his pockets and held Jack’s gaze. “I mean, that’s just about respect, isn’t it?”
Jack had no choice. “My parents set off on a world cruise yesterday. It’s unlikely Dad will come back.”
“And you didn’t tell me this, because . . . ?” Jack didn’t answer. “I won’t tolerate officers who try to pull the wool over my eyes and don’t take the job seriously. I don’t think you do take this job seriously, Jack, that’s one problem me and you have got.” His tone softened. “How long’s the cruise?”
“Four months.”
“That’s no time at all, is it? I’m sorry, Jack, I really am. You OK to be here?”
“Yes, sir. I want to work. In fact, I’d like to be the one who goes to Taunton and interviews Connie Stephens. If I hadn’t seen Ester face to face yesterday, I’d never have figured out that Connie’s B&B was probably going to be called The Grange. That came out of a bit of chat over a cuppa. I’m getting to know these women one by one and so, I’d like to keep control of all the interviews if that’s OK with you, sir.”
Ridley took no time at all to change his mind completely and agree that Jack could go to Taunton to interview Connie. His focus and commitment was all Ridley ever wanted. And now he felt as though his protégé finally had it.
“Thank you,” Jack said. “I get the strong feeling, sir, that on this one, we have to go backward in order to go forward.”
Even as the words left Jack’s mouth, he wasn’t sure if he was referring to the Rose Cottage case, or to his own search for his birth dad.