DI Sean Corrigan Crime Series: 6-Book Collection: Cold Killing, Redemption of the Dead, The Keeper, The Network, The Toy Taker and The Jackdaw. Luke Delaney
Читать онлайн книгу.
raised voices fading in the background.
Featherstone sipped a coffee as he waited outside the custody suite. He knew Sean would head that way eventually. Much as he liked the guy, even believed in him, he was aware that, so far as the top brass were concerned, Sean had a tendency to sail way too close to the wind.
‘Sean,’ Featherstone surprised him as he clattered through the door. ‘You got a minute?’ He gestured towards an unoccupied room.
‘Can this wait?’
‘Best not. We won’t be long.’
Reluctantly, Sean followed Featherstone into the room.
‘It seems some influential people are beginning to stick their noses into your investigation,’ Featherstone warned him. ‘Calls have been put in to the Yard and the brass are getting nervous. I’ll keep the hounds at bay, but you’d better make sure you’ve got some evidence to back up any move you make.’
‘We found hairs at the latest scene,’ Sean told him. ‘We can get DNA off them. We match them to Hellier and then it’s all over.’
‘That’s a start,’ Featherstone said. ‘But we can’t hold a suspect in custody while we wait for a DNA comparison. So what’s the plan?’
‘I need to keep him rattled. Keep him off balance. Let me keep him locked up for a few hours.’ Sean spoke quietly, suppressing his anger. ‘Then I’ll bail him, once he’s nice and wound up, not thinking straight. The surveillance team can pick him up the second he leaves the station.’
Featherstone inhaled deeply. ‘Okay. We’ll play it your way, but be careful with this one, Sean. Hellier has some very powerful friends.’
‘Thanks for the warning.’
‘One other thing,’ Featherstone said as Sean turned to leave. ‘What’s this I hear about the victim in Shepherd’s Bush saying she’d met you the night she was killed?’
‘You heard?’
‘There’s not much I don’t get to hear about.’
‘Hellier likes to play games.’
‘You need to be careful,’ Featherstone warned him again. ‘Be very careful. People are watching this case. People are watching you. My advice – make sure you can prove where you were and who you were with the night Linda Kotler was killed.’
‘You can’t be serious?’ Sean asked, incredulous. ‘You don’t actually think …?’
‘Not me,’ Featherstone assured him. ‘But this investigation is turning out to be more complex than anyone expected. It’s making the powers that be very nervous, Sean.’
Sean felt a huge weight pressing down on him, as if Featherstone’s words and inferred suspicion were slowly crushing the life out of him. ‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ he said curtly, turning his back on the superintendent and walking out of the room.
He made his way along the corridor and into the communal toilet. After checking to make sure he was alone, he filled a sink with cold water and bent low over it, scooping up handfuls and burying his face in it before straightening to meet his own reflection staring back. His eyes were sunken with tiredness and dehydration. Featherstone’s words still ringing around inside his head. He reached out for the reflection, but the image looking back at him kept distorting to someone else: to the disfigured image of Daniel Graydon, the horrified face of Heather Freeman, and finally Linda Kotler, contorted with agony and fear. He rubbed the mirror, smearing it with water then waiting for it to clear. When it did, it was his own face again, staring back and asking the question: could he have killed Linda Kotler? He swallowed drily, remembering the images he’d seen in his head at the murder scenes and other murder scenes in the past. Not for the first time he found himself asking another question: were these images from his projected imagination, or were they memories – memories of crimes he had committed?
‘You were at home with Kate the night Linda Kotler died, and the same when Daniel Graydon was killed – you were at home.’ Desperately he tried to remember where he’d been the evening Heather Freeman was killed, but he couldn’t. He felt the panic seeping through his very soul. ‘You were with your wife,’ he hissed into the mirror, but he couldn’t chase away the doubt, the possibility he was no different from half the inmates of Broadmoor. Could it be that his home life was a fantasy, his wife a figment of his imagination, his entire family nothing more than a mirage – a projection of what he wanted most but could never have?
‘No,’ he banged the mirror with the underside of his fist. ‘For Christ’s sake, get a grip. You’re tired, that’s all. You solved those other murders. The people who did them are locked up for life because of you.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Hellier killed these people, not me. I’m real. My life is real. It’s real.’
Suddenly the door was thrown open by a uniformed officer desperate for the toilet. He stalled for a second at the sight of Sean standing in front of the mirror, face dripping wet, hands gripping the basin. With a brief nod at Sean, he disappeared into a cubicle. When the door closed behind him, Sean quickly dried his hands on a bunch of paper towels and made for the exit.
Sally entered Che shortly after 1 p.m. and immediately spotted Gibran seated at a table, sipping a glass of amber-coloured wine. He stood when he saw her. A waiter pulled a chair out for her as Gibran indicated for her to sit with a wave of his hand and a smile.
‘DS Jones. I’m very grateful you were able to see me.’
‘Please,’ she said. ‘Call me Sally.’
‘Sally, of course. And you must call me Sebastian – deal?’
‘Deal,’ Sally agreed.
‘Can I get you a drink? Or is that against the rules? I wouldn’t want to get you in trouble.’ He gave Sally a boyish grin full of mischief. She already felt relaxed in his company.
‘Why not? Whatever you’re having will be fine.’
Gibran nodded once at the nearby waiter, who scuttled away immediately. ‘The venison here is excellent,’ he informed her, ‘but a little fussy for my taste. You’ll find I’m a simple man with simple tastes, except when it comes to people, of course.’
It seemed to Sally that he was trying to impress her with his modesty and down-to-earth attitude, despite his obvious wealth and influence. She was duly impressed, but she wasn’t about to let it show. Not yet.
‘So, what is it I can do for you, Sebastian?’
‘Straight to the point.’ He stalled while the waiter served Sally’s wine. ‘I hope you like it. Dominico here tells me it’s a very fine Sancerre and as I am nowhere near as well informed in these matters, I’m completely in his hands.’ Gibran waited for the wine waiter to leave before speaking again. ‘You must tell me if the wine’s any good, then I’ll know whether Dominico’s been ripping me off the last few years.’
She took a sip and smiled at him, holding his gaze for a little too long. She concentrated on sounding businesslike. ‘It’s very nice, thank you. Now, why am I here?’
‘I wish I could say it was purely for pleasure, but I’m guessing you’ve already assumed that’s not the case.’
‘I’m a detective. I try not to make assumptions.’
‘Of course. Sorry,’ Gibran said with natural charm. ‘We’re here because we have a mutual interest in a certain party.’
‘James Hellier?’
‘Yes,’ he confirmed, his expression suddenly serious, the flirtatious, boyish personality evaporating in an instant.
‘Mr Gibran − Sebastian. If you’re here to try and somehow influence my opinion of Hellier’s involvement in this case, then I should warn you—’
‘That’s not my intention,’ Gibran insisted, tapping his