It was a pin-sharp morning, the sort of morning that makes arriving at work less of a chore than usual. Charlie blinked in the strong sunlight as she emerged from the underground car park and headed for the lift.
Her shoulder was still aching but it wasn’t stopping her from carrying on as normal.
What’s normal, Charlie? Fighting a deranged knifewoman; all part of the service, ma’am…
She pushed through the doors into the open plan.
Applause. Loud applause.
Her colleagues had formed a semicircle, and there was George at the front, goading the team on like a wild-haired conductor, exhorting them to louder demonstrations of congratulation.
Charlie didn’t know what to do. It was embarrassing. She held up her good arm to quieten them but this only made their clapping even more enthusiastic.
As the noise gradually died down, she addressed the sea of grins. ‘Thanks, you lot. It’s good to be back. No big deal. Just did my job.’
As the crowd dispersed, Moran beckoned from his office door. Charlie moved self-consciously through the room, through liberal smatterings of ‘well done, ma’am’ and ‘great job, boss’ asides, several pats on the back, and, worst of all, admiring looks from two of the younger team members, until she gratefully entered Moran’s inner sanctum and closed the door behind her.
‘Have a seat, Charlie. How’s the shoulder?’
She plumped herself down. ‘I can cope. They only kept me in overnight, thank God – I’ve had a gutful of hospitals.’
‘I’ll bet.’
She smiled a sheepish smile. ’I’ll see if I can stay clear of the medical profession for the next twelve months. So, what’s the latest? How’s Brodie doing? He’d been discharged from ICU by the time I left.’
‘Surgeon is confident he’ll make a complete recovery – that’s just come through, Bola took the call.’
‘And Chan?’
‘Conscious. Not saying much. Sussex have an armed guard on her side ward.’
‘But she’ll be all right?’
‘I’ve been assured that she hasn’t suffered any permanent damage. So, you be assured too, Charlie.’
Charlie looked over Moran’s shoulder to the window where a rectangular frame of azure sky was bisected by a thin contrail from some intercontinental airliner moving at what seemed to be, from her perspective, a snail’s pace. ‘I’m glad. No, relieved.’
‘We have quite a bit more on Chan – or Zubaida Ungu, to use her real name. George has been digging – turns out she has rather a sad history.’ Moran let out a weary sigh before continuing. ‘When I found her, Charlie, – at Eagle Court, I mean – she was just a frightened girl. That knock on the head seemed to regress her, transport her back to her childhood.’
Charlie nodded. She wanted to understand the woman. ‘She’ll be thoroughly assessed, won’t she? Whatever persona she’s adopted, she sure is one very disturbed individual, take my word for it.’
‘Of course,’ Moran said. ‘I’m not suggesting she’s an innocent. It was just unexpected, that’s all.’
‘You’re lucky she didn’t try to carve you up, too.’ Charlie tried to smile, but Moran didn’t look as though he’d been fooled.
‘She’s safely in custody, Charlie. You did a great job.’
‘Did I? She got the better of me.’ Charlie felt herself welling up, put a hand to her mouth. ‘She could have killed Brodie, and I just–’
‘Enough.’ Moran raised his forefinger, mock-sternly. ‘Take it easy for a few days, that’s my advice. You’ve done the team proud, DI Pepper – you’ve just witnessed their reaction first-hand. George told me he’s chuffed to work for such an inspiring boss. And coming from George,’ Moran spread his hands, ‘that’s pretty impressive stuff.’
Charlie grimaced. ‘Bloody creep.’
They both laughed.
‘George and me are overdue a catchup, anyway,’ Charlie said. ‘But how long before we get to speak to Duncan Brodie?’
‘A day or so. But we have to tread cautiously – or politically, I should say. We need agreement on who’s taking the lead on this. Higginson’s on the case. We’ll have to wait and see.’
‘So, it could all be handled by Police Scotland?’
‘Possibly,’ Moran conceded.
‘Guv, I have to say that I take a personal inter–’
‘I know, I know. It’s not signed and sealed yet, Charlie. Let’s be patient for now. Oh, by the way, I made an interesting discovery concerning Brodie and Chan’s relationship.’
Charlie tried to calm herself. She wasn’t prepared to let the case walk all the way back to Scotland without her involvement. ‘Oh yes? Go on.’
‘According to the maître d’ of the Swan in Petworth, Brodie and Chan only met while Brodie was staying at the hotel. She approached him one evening while he was eating. It was a setup on Chan’s part, by the look of things.’
‘She lured him to the school to kill him? But why?’
Moran joined his hands together. ‘All will become clear when we can speak to them both, I’m sure.’
‘Take a look.’ George proffered a document with a black and white photograph clipped to the top corner.
Charlie inspected the photograph. It showed a young girl, aged around twelve or thirteen, Charlie estimated, seated outdoors at a plastic white table. She was looking at the camera, but her eyes were looking right through it. There was a crudely manufactured doll lying on the table, and the girl had thrown a half-hearted arm across it, perhaps at the instigation of the photographer. The setting was a garden in which a number of exotic plants and trees formed a leafy backdrop against a whitewashed wall. The girl’s expression wasn’t hard to decipher; her mouth was a silent pout of indifference, or perhaps unhappiness, and her eyes were devoid of emotion.
Someone had inscribed a name in black ballpoint in the top right hand corner of the photograph:
Zubaida Binti Ungu
‘All from the original case files,’ George said. ‘I’ll leave you to have a read.’
Charlie read the summary document. It was a bleak story. Zubaida was the daughter of a wealthy Malaysian businessman. The first seven years of her life had been idyllic; the family had lived in an exclusive suburb of Kuala Lumpur. Servants, pool, chauffeur-driven car, the lot.
This had all come to a tragic end one night as her parents returned from a company dinner. Their car was hit by a drunk driver; it left the carriageway, turned over, burst into flames. No survivors.
Zubaida was adopted by an uncle, and until his wife died suddenly from some unspecified ailment, all was well. Then the abuse began. Zubaida must have confided in the mother of a school friend, because there was an archive report expressing concern. Nothing was ever followed up, or at least no documentation could be unearthed to suggest that the complaint had ever been taken seriously. The uncle’s reputation for inappropriate behaviour in relation to members of the opposite sex was, if not documented, then certainly hinted at.
When Zubaida was sixteen her uncle was found in his bed, apparently asphyxiated, and Zubaida simply disappeared. The murder had been carefully planned; no forensic evidence could been found to implicate the teenager, although she remained the prime suspect. Malaysian police suspected that she had fled to a boyfriend somewhere in the city, persuaded him to put her up for a while, obtained a passport at some later point, and left the country. The uncle’s bank account had been cleared out.
Charlie exhaled, pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes, briefly saw stars, and continued reading.
Zubaida popped up again two years later in France in connection with an unsolved case – an elderly man’s suspicious demise. Zubaida had been working as an au pair with a family in Canet Plage, and the elderly man was a family friend. He had taken a special shine to Zubaida, although the family didn’t know her by that name. To them, she was Zazu, reliable, kind to the children, fun-loving. After the family friend’s mysterious death, Zazu handed in her notice, much to the family’s chagrin, and was neither seen nor heard from again.
The family friend had been something of an eccentric, his house a veritable museum of valuable antiques and antiquities. It was all uncatalogued, so the gendarmes had no idea what, if anything, might have been missing from the collection. Six months later, a rare sixteenth century bracelet appeared in a Paris auction, and achieved a record sale price in a tensely fought bidding war. Such was the interest generated that its provenance was methodically traced back to Canet Plage, and eventually to the eccentric collector. The auctioneer remembered the vendor well – a strikingly pretty Malaysian woman. young, very well spoken.
Next sighting, England, UK…
Charlie had read enough. She paper-clipped the photo to the summary document, slid it into the folder. It was time to tell Luscombe what she’d found, or rather not found, at Crawley General Hospital.