Jack Morgan 02 - Private London (9 page)

I don’t know why I said that last part. Or rather I did – I wanted to impress the woman, I guess.

‘Poor Hannah. I can’t bear to think what she is going through.’

‘She will be safe for the moment, professor. I know that much.’ I almost believed it myself.

‘Call me Annabelle, please.’

I resisted the urge to say it was a pretty name. But it was. ‘They will be keeping her safe, Annabelle,’ I said instead. ‘She’s precious goods to them. Until we hear their demands I am pretty certain they won’t harm a hair on her head.’

‘There has been no contact with the family, then? No ransom demand?’

I shook my head.

I didn’t tell her the other possibility that Adrian Tuttle had raised in the morning’s briefing. That she had been taken for body parts and for all we knew was already dead.

‘I’m sure we’ll hear something soon,’ I said. ‘And the entire resources of Private worldwide are at my disposal to get her safely home.’

‘Shouldn’t the police be left to handle it?’

‘The police will be doing everything they can. But sometimes we can do more.’

‘How so?’

‘Each year in London alone there about one hundred and seventy homicides,’ I said. ‘That’s more than one every three days. And that’s just homicide. If you take into account every other crime, from theft and assault to rape, that occurs in this city, never mind the ongoing threat of terrorist attacks that have to be investigated – if you think about that, then you can see that we can bring to bear on this case something the Metropolitan Police could never hope to.’

‘Which is?’ the professor asked.

‘Absolute focus.’ I said

And it was true.

Professor Weston looked down at my business card for a moment and then nodded, lifted her head and looked me straight in the eye.

‘Just tell me what you need.’

Chapter 34

SUZY CRADLED THE phone to her ear and typed on the computer keyboard in front of her.

‘Copy that, Dan,’ she said as the crest of Chancellors University appeared in the centre of the screen above the word SECURITY printed in block capitals.

She clicked on the crest and the image fragmented into a thousand pixels floating off the screen, leaving a plain password box in its place.

‘Okay, I got it,’ she said. ‘I’ll get back to you.’ She clicked her phone shut as Lucy came in.

‘What have we got?’

‘Dan’s been to see Hannah and Chloe’s tutor. She’s the faculty liaison officer with security at the college.’

‘Which means?’

‘She has access to the security files online. Including CCTV footage.’

Suzy quickly typed in the password. Flicking through several screens and pulling up a list of digitally stored data. She clicked against yesterday’s date and then against the cameras marked for the union bar and then the quad outside. She right-clicked and saved them as AVI files.

She stood up and grinned. ‘Come on.’

‘Where to?’

‘You haven’t seen this yet. It’s fun.’

Lucy followed her, puzzled, as she walked away from her desk and led her back to the conference room.

Inside, Suzy opened the top drawer of a storage unit and took out two pairs of what appeared to be lightly tinted sunglasses. She threw Lucy a pair, slipped hers on and picked up the thin wandlike remote control that operated the television that dominated the far end of the room. She stepped to the side and flicked a switch. Shutters dropped over the exterior and interior of the windows and the lights dimmed to almost darkness.

‘Lights, camera, action,’ said Suzy, pressing the control, and the Union Bar of Chancellors College filled the screen. Suzy freeze-framed the image and pulled out her notebook.

She pointed the control at the monitor again, clicked the button and light danced into the room, transforming the two-dimensional image in a full holographic-style 3D effect as the tape played and a burst of motion surrounded the on-screen figures.

‘Last night’s footage,’ explained Suzy. ‘The computer takes the feed from each camera and triangulates it, making the image three-dimensional.’

Lucy held out her hand and flinched as a large and extremely drunk young man seemed to walk straight at her.

‘The police will have this footage as well but they have nowhere near this kind of image-enhancement and three-dimensional-projection technology.’

Lucy nodded, impressed. It really felt as if she could reach out and pick up a glass off one of the tables.

‘Sound as well. Chancellors recently had their whole security network upgraded.’

Lucy pushed another button and the deafening noise of the bar filled the room. She adjusted the volume to a reasonable level and used the control to navigate around the room, coming to the entrance door where she fast-forwarded until Chloe and her two friends came in and walked up to the bar.

Two brunettes and a blonde. Young, vibrant, beautiful.

Dressed up for a night of partying, by the looks of them. There was no shortage of young men hitting on them and they particularly drew the attention of a large crowd who were wearing CUL rugby shirts. They seemed perfectly capable of deflecting the unwanted attention. Suzy guessed they were probably used to it.

Lucy and Suzy let the tape run and the events unfold around them. The girls were downing vodka and Red Bulls like they were going out of fashion. At least, Hannah and Laura were. Dan’s god-daughter Chloe seemed to be holding back.

After about an hour Suzy paused the tape – she had watched it up to the girls leaving the bar – and then rewound. She zoomed in a little on Hannah and Chloe who were talking. Having to shout to make themselves heard. Suzy killed the volume from the other cameras, turned up the one focused on the girls and let the sequence run again.

Chapter 35

‘Good thinking, girlfriend. Bunch of goddamned horny schoolboys in here, is all. I need to pee first, though, honey.’

Hannah looped her arm through that of Laura who was being chatted up by a lanky youth and headed to the loos.

Chloe put a hand on the bar, seeming to steady herself.

‘She look all right to you, Lucy?’ asked Suzy as she paused the footage again.

‘No. Not for the amount she’s had. She’s not been drinking as much as the other girls.’

‘No. She’s keeping herself sober. Or trying to.’

‘Always on the case.’

Suzy nodded. ‘She’s a pro. You figure her drink was spiked?’

‘Looks that way.’

Suzy nodded and ran the tape again, watching as the barman chatted to Chloe who then nearly collapsed as she walked away. She stood up unsteadily and brushed away the hand of one of the rugby players who had come across to help her.

Chloe was five foot ten in her bare feet and the man seemed surprised at her strength. He backed off, holding his hand up, and Chloe stumbled through a crowd of his friends who were singing loudly. She lurched through them, through the door and up the ancient stone steps out into the night.

‘Someone spiked her drink,’ said Suzy. ‘I guarantee it.’

‘Maybe it was caught on camera?’

‘Let’s find out,’ said Suzy as she rewound the footage and fast-forwarded it again. Slowing it down as drinks were poured and handed over.

Some half an hour or so after the girls had entered the bar she paused it again. Then ran it backwards and forwards a few more times. The crowd of rugby players and another bunch of male students were at the bar and the barman was obscured from view for a while. When the crowd cleared, Chloe had a new drink in front of her.

‘One of those men at the bar?’ asked Lucy.

‘Could be.’ Suzy tried to adjust the angle of view but there wasn’t a camera behind the bar pointing down, only one pointing outwards, so there was no way they could see what had happened to Chloe’s drink. She pulled out her phone and hit a speed-dial button. She listened to Dan’s recorded voice as the call went direct to voicemail.

‘Dan, it’s Suzy,’ she said after the beep. ‘Get someone onto Chloe’s blood works at the hospital. It looks like she was slipped a Mickey of some sort.’

She closed her phone and turned back to the screen.

‘Why would someone have just targeted Hannah?’ asked Lucy.

‘I don’t know. Unless they knew who she was.’

Suzy pressed the remote again and they sat and watched as the external security cameras picked up the action. Switching data files as Chloe came up the steps leading into the quad, walking across it and out into the side street.

She flipped the control again and called up the earlier footage as Chloe left the bar. She watched her leave, weaving through the group of drunken rugby players. One of them was watching her very closely.

Suzy let the tape run for a few moments more and then whistled quietly.

‘Well, well, well,’ she said.

She clicked another button and the printer standing in the corner of the room beeped and hummed into life.

Chapter 36

THE UNION JACK Café near Shaftesbury Avenue was one of the last of a dying breed in the capital. A proper greasy spoon.

I had ordered the full monty – eggs, bacon, sausages, hash browns, mushrooms, black pudding – but when it arrived I pushed it aside. The memory of Chloe lying in bed with a tube in her mouth kind of spoiled my appetite.

Sam Riddel was carving his yolk-free scrambled eggs on wheat toast with surgical precision. He laid his fork carefully aside and took a sip of his chilled organic tomato juice. His breakfast went against all the principles of the café, but we had been coming here long enough for the owner to compromise for Sam. Besides, most people didn’t argue with my colleague. Apart from his boyfriend and me, that was.

Suzy came in, carrying an A4 manila envelope.

‘What have you got?’ I asked.

‘Not sure yet, but you’ll want to see this.’ She opened the envelope and put a photo in front of me. ‘This is the guy serving Chloe and the others last night in the union bar. I’ve heard back from the hospital …’

‘And?’

‘And Chloe’s blood work was showing traces of an intermediate-acting three-hydroxy benzodiazepine.’

‘Which means?’

‘Temazepam,’ said Sam and took another delicate sip of his tomato juice.

‘Someone slipped her a Mickey. Lucy and I went through all the footage, there were a couple of possibilities,’ Suzy said, tapping the photo. ‘This guy had ample opportunity and he’s out of sight of the CCTV easily for long enough to spike her vodka. He leaves the bar shortly after Chloe. He doesn’t show up in the quad but there are other exits not covered by any camera.’

‘And the other possibility?’

‘A group of men at the bar. Rugby team – one of them shows a very keen interest in her.’

Suzy flipped a couple of photos down. The young men from the security footage. Early twenties, big, boisterous by the look of it, wearing the university rugby colours. And a further one. A close-up shot of one of the men. A degree more serious than the others, his eyes unsmiling as he looked at Chloe leaving. An intense, predatory look.

‘Good job. We got names on these people yet?’

‘The barman’s called Ryan Williams. He’s being interviewed down at Paddington Green even as we speak.’

‘He’s been arrested?’

‘No. Helping with enquiries.’

‘Why take him down there, then?’

‘Don’t know, boss. But you probably know someone who does.’ Suzy smiled pointedly. She was right. I did.

I tapped the pictures of the rugby players. ‘And the merry gentlemen here?’

‘We’re on it, Dan.’

‘Good.’

‘But there’s more,’ she added.

‘Go on,’ prompted Sam.

Suzy picked up the envelope again. ‘I went back to the footage from the quad, wound back a couple of hours. The university had a visitor you both might recognise, and I’m guessing he wasn’t there because he had a tutorial on Spenser’s Faerie Queen.’

She slipped the final photo out and flipped it down on the table.

She was probably right about the tutorial. The man in the dark suit and matching sunglasses was about Sam Riddel’s height but a good few stone heavier, and certainly no vegetarian. His name was Brendan ‘Snake’ Ferres and he was one of the most unpleasant men to walk the planet.

‘Not good,’ I said simply.

‘Not good at all,’ agreed Suzy.

‘As far from good as it can get,’ added Sam.

Brendan Ferres was the right-and left-hand man of Ronnie Allen. And Ronnie Allen was a very serious customer. He was the go-to man north of the river for drugs, prostitution, guns, murder. You name it – if it was illegal his fingers were going to be in the pie somewhere. But not kidnapping, so far as I knew.

I picked up the photos, sliding them back into the manila envelope.

‘You see Allen mixed up in this?’ I asked Sam.

He shrugged and finished his drink. ‘Not his usual thing. But then again, we don’t really know what this thing is. We don’t know who has got Hannah Shapiro and as yet we don’t know why.’

He had a point.

Or he did. Until my phone rang, jangling on the Formica-topped table. I looked at the caller ID.

Jack Morgan.

Chapter 37

DI KIRSTY WEBB desperately fancied a cigarette.

She hadn’t smoked in over ten years, but she reckoned she could kill for one now as she watched the forensic pathologist preparing to examine the corpse.

It was supposed to be Kirsty’s weekend off. Fat chance of that now with a girl gone missing, abducted right off the street, and another woman found eviscerated and dumped. Murdered, most likely.

Three weeks earlier Kirsty had been the lead DI called to the Putney rowing club on the Surrey side of the Thames.

Six-thirty in the morning on the first of May, Dr Jonathan Brown, a twenty-seven-year-old academic specialising in medieval hagiography, had been preparing to go on the water. He was a hotly tipped single-sculls hopeful for the 2012 Olympics and pretty much every minute of his spare time was spent training for the event.

As he was putting his scull onto the water that morning, however, Dr Brown saw something that caused him to step back, make the sign of the cross and mutter a prayer to Saint Andrew the Apostle, the patron saint of fishermen. What he was looking at was the mottled arm of a dead woman.