Cleanskin

‘The doctor’s got her dosed up to the eyeballs on tranks,’ the woman said. ‘We’re not going to get any sense out of her. Probably not in this lifetime, anyway.’

‘You think the doctor’s under Farrell’s orders?’ I asked. I was interested in how it seemed to people who were out of the loop on Farrell’s track record.

The woman shrugged. ‘You lose a kid like that, you’re going to want to be well out of it. I think the doctor’s giving her what she wants.’

‘Yeah, and when she comes back from her space walk, who knows what she’ll remember,’ her buddy added gloomily.

I had to agree with him. It didn’t look like Martina was going to be much use. In that state, she couldn’t tell us anything useful about who might want to burn her daughter to death or why. Even more importantly, from Farrell’s point of view, she couldn’t tell us where he was or what he was up to.

It got worse when the second team drifted back towards lunchtime. They’d gone out looking keen and sharp, the way young CID lads get when they have something to prove. Now they looked shifty, rather than pissed off like the earlier pair. My heart sank. That’s what you get when you send boys on a man’s errand, I thought to myself. They’ve been blown out.

Turned out, it was worse than that. ‘She’s done a runner,’ the shorter, skinnier one said; Laurel to the other one’s Hardy. Not that there was much to laugh about.

Hardy nodded miserably. ‘Not a Scooby-Doo where she is. The hospital treated her for the effects of the smoke, then discharged her. We had a couple of uniforms waiting to talk to her, but she said she was too upset. She said Farrell had told her to check into a local hotel, so our lads dropped her off at the door. But she never checked in.’ He looked at his shoes. It seemed like he was as impressed with his co-workers as I was.

‘Wonderful,’ I said bitterly. ‘I don’t suppose you checked any other local hotels? Just on the off-chance?’

‘That’s what took us so long,’ the skinny one said. ‘Nobody locally has her registered.’

I sighed and shook my head. ‘OK. We’re probably too late now, but get on to the airports and the airlines. Let’s see if Manuela has already skipped off back to Spain. And if she hasn’t, put out an alert at all points of exit.’ I waved them away and swung round to face Ben Wilson.

‘I’m beginning to wonder if I was right about Farrell sticking to his usual routine,’ I said.

Ben gave his nicotine gum a vigorous chew, a look of disgust on his bulldog face. ‘We’ll find out soon enough,’ he said, nodding towards the door. ‘They’re back. And it looks like they’re empty-handed.’

I swung round in the direction of his gaze. The two lads I’d sent out to bring me Jack Farrell had just come in. There was an empty space between them where Farrell should have been. ‘He never showed, guv,’ the ginger one said as soon as he was close enough to tell me without shouting.

‘I’m not your guv,’ I said sharply. ‘Which I regard as a result, frankly. You’re telling me Jack Farrell hasn’t been near Smithson’s today?’

They both nodded.

‘What about Danny Chu and Fancy Riley? Did they turn up?’ I asked.

The red-haired lad flashed a quick glance at his oppo. A glance that said, Oh, shit. They both shifted from one foot to the other.

‘Never mind,’ I sighed. ‘OK, here’s what I want you to do. Phone Farrell’s lawyer and set up a meeting down here. Tell him we need to take a formal statement from Farrell about the fire. Tell him it needs to be sooner rather than later.’

They slunk off, leaving me with Ben. ‘What do you think?’ I said.

Ben spat his gum into the bin and shrugged. ‘Katie was his only kid. Maybe he really is beside himself with grief.’

I wasn’t won over by the argument. Even less so when the fat lad I’d put on Manuela’s tail came back to me later on.

‘She was on the first flight from Heathrow to Malaga. She was on the ground there three hours ago, but she hasn’t shown up at the family home,’ he said. ‘The Spanish cops checked it out. Her mum and dad only live an hour from the airport. They claim they had no idea she was on her way back to Spain. And they haven’t a clue where she might be holed up.’

Like most English gangsters, Farrell had connections in Spain. That’s probably how he’d got Manuela in the first place. It’s still easy to disappear there. So many tourists, so many short-term workers. I remember once meeting a Spanish cop who said there were some parts of his country where there were no locals any more. Somewhere like that would be the perfect place to stash a young Spanish woman you wanted to stay hidden for a while. For whatever reason.

I looked at Ben. ‘Farrell had enough wits about him to get the nanny out of the picture,’ I said, grim-faced. ‘Still think he’s so upset he’s lost it?’

CHAPTER FOUR (#u2f570961-c7e2-55d2-a3fb-d35b103f9a52)

THE LAWYER GOT BACK to us towards the end of the afternoon. His name was Max Carter and his voice irritated the hell out of me, never mind what he had to say. He made Prince Charles sound common as muck. The upshot was, Jack Farrell was willing to meet us the next morning at the lawyer’s office.

‘I’d rather Mr Farrell came down to the police station,’ I said. ‘I’m going to be a bit pushed for time tomorrow morning and I want to take a formal statement.’

‘We’re all busy men,’ Carter said in a lofty way that made me long to slap him. ‘However, neither of us has lost a child in the last twenty-four hours. Mr Farrell deserves our compassion and our consideration. A police station is not equipped to provide either of those, Detective Chief Inspector. Shall we say ten thirty at my office?’

I didn’t have much choice, so I agreed. As I put the phone down, I turned to Ben and told him about the meeting. ‘Carter’s office is in one of those Canary Wharf towers. I want a pair of officers on all the ground-level exits and two cars in the underground car park. See if we can chase up the building plans from the council, just to be on the safe side. Farrell doesn’t get out of there without a tail.’

Ben nodded. ‘OK, boss. Do you want me to get a tap on the lawyer’s phone?’

‘He’ll assume we’ve already got one. Besides, there’s no point. Every move we make just shows us how canny Farrell is. Even now the arse has dropped out of his world, the firewalls are still holding firm. You might want to tap up some of the usual sources and see if we can track down Danny and Fancy, though.’ I shut up sharpish as a tall woman stopped by my desk. Her thick dark hair had a distinctive silver streak falling from the centre parting over one ear. I grinned at the sight of her.

‘You’re a bit off your patch, aren’t you?’ I said.

‘I could say the same to you,’ she replied. She pointed to Ben’s chair and he stood up with a twisted little smile. She swung round the desk and settled down, propping her feet on the bin with a sigh of pleasure.

I’ve always admired a woman who can stand up for herself. Dr Stella Marino had enough bottle to stand up for her entire sex. For the last five years, she’d been cutting up bodies for me. Unlike the ones that Farrell carved up, the ones Stella worked on were already dead.

‘I’m not your personal pathologist, you know,’ she said now. ‘You’re not the only bunch of cops who need to call on the best.’

‘You’re here for Katie Farrell?’ I knew the answer, but you have to go through the motions, even when you work as closely together as Stella and I do.

Stella nodded. ‘Though only because of your interest in her father, I suspect. There was nothing about the body to suggest anything other than what you all assumed at the time. She was in her bed. The smoke and fumes killed her. The body was badly burned, but that happened post mortem. I suppose that may offer some comfort to her parents.’ She tried not to sound bored but failed. Poor Stella gets bored very quickly when a body offers no surprises.

‘You’re saying the person who did this didn’t want her to suffer?’ Ben chipped in.

Stella pushed her hair back from her face in a familiar gesture. ‘Motive’s your thing, Ben. I just read what’s written on the body.’ She yawned then got to her feet. ‘You’ll get the formal report in a day or two.’

‘Let me walk you out,’ I said, falling into step beside her. When we’d got beyond the reach of Ben’s flapping ears, I spoke. ‘It’s been a while, I know, but it looks like I might have some free time this evening. I could bring a takeaway round to yours?’

Stella bit her lip. ‘It’s a nice thought, Andy. But here’s the thing. I’m off to the States at the end of the week and I’ve got a million things to do before I leave.’

‘The States?’ I tried not to slide straight into a huff, but it was a struggle. OK, we’re not exactly what you’d call an item, Stella and me. But getting together three or four times a month for dinner and a session between the sheets isn’t nothing either. ‘It’s the first I’ve heard about the States.’

We were out in the hall by now, shoulder to shoulder in the narrow passage. Stella didn’t slow down, just kept heading for the lifts with her long stride. ‘I got the chance to spend a month at the Body Farm,’ she said. ‘You know, where they –’

‘I know what they do there,’ I cut in. ‘Hard to resist. A month watching bodies rot. A pathologist’s wet dream.’ I shook my head and let my mouth curl into a sneer. ‘Beats hanging out with me and a Chinese.’

Stella stabbed the lift button and swung round to face me. ‘Listen to yourself. I’ve heard five-year-olds sounding more adult.’ Stella laughed and leaned forward to plant a soft kiss on my cheek. She smelled, as she always did at the end of a working day, of the lavender gel she scrubbed her face and hands with. ‘Silly boy,’ she said. She patted my arm as the lift doors opened. ‘I’ll see you when I get back. Try not to find any really interesting bodies between now and then.’

I faked a glare. ‘I’ll see what I can come up with. Just to spite you.’

CHAPTER FIVE (#u2f570961-c7e2-55d2-a3fb-d35b103f9a52)

THE STAKE-OUT HAD BEEN in place for a full hour before the meeting at Max Carter’s office. Even though we do this sort of thing all the time, I think we were all a bit edgy that morning. The game had changed somehow and it felt like we didn’t quite know the new rules yet.

We picked up Farrell as soon as he was dropped off outside the building by Fancy Riley just after ten. The apparent change in him was striking. He walked the short distance to the main door like an old man, his shoulders hunched and his walk hesitant. His head was bowed, his eyes fixed on the pavement. To be honest, I might have walked past him in the street without recognizing him if I hadn’t been keeping an eye out for him.