Aftershock

Eighteen

‘The boy’s father’s an MP,’ McGuire exclaimed. ‘Is that going to be a problem?’

‘Not so far, from what Becky told me,’ McIlhenney replied. ‘She says that the man’s concerned, fair enough, but that he gave her all the help he could. Longer term, that’ll depend on how things go with the boy. If he has someone who can vouch for where he was at the time of the murder, there’s no problem. If not, it might become a bit trickier; if we have to treat the kid as a suspect. I trust Becky to handle the dad, though. She’s lived and worked in his environment for years.’

‘Sure, but this is a homicide investigation.’

‘She’s had plenty experience of those too. Remember, she was a DS in the East End of London before she moved to Charing Cross. What’s making you so twitchy anyway?’

‘This situation; the idea of some nutter copying Ballester.’

‘We don’t know that it is. We’ve only just IDed the victim; we hardly know anything about her. She could have had people in her private life queuing up to bump her off. We still have to find that out.’

‘Maybe so, but my money’s on this being down to that nutter I’m worrying about. Come on, you’ve seen the crime-scene photos, and you’ve seen the PM report. You had the same pathologist who did the autopsies on Zrinka and Amy Noone handle this one. What did he say? That in his opinion the methods of execution were identical. Are you telling me that you don’t believe, in your heart of hearts, that we’ve got a copycat?’

McIlhenney shook his head. ‘No. I admit it, I agree with you. But I’m hoping we’re both wrong, because chances are a head-banger won’t stop at one. Ballester wasn’t really a serial killer, but this one might well be. We could be out on a limb here.’ He looked his colleague in the eye. ‘Should we seek the advice of our absent friend and mentor?’

‘I rather think we should,’ said McGuire. ‘I’ve already called him once today, about something else, but I don’t think we should put this off. Tell you what, let’s try an Internet link; I know he’s on line in his Spanish house. I’ll call him and ask him to switch on.’

‘Okay; you do that and I’ll e-mail him some of the crime-scene pics, so that he can see what we’re talking about.’

As the head of CID left his room, McIlhenney turned to his computer terminal and opened the folder he had set up for the Dean murder inquiry, then switched on his e-mail link and clicked the ‘write message’ command.

He was about to begin when the phone rang. He snatched it up. ‘McIlhenney,’ he said evenly, conquering his impatience.

‘Superintendent,’ a woman’s voice replied. ‘Joanna Lock.’

‘What can I do for you?’

‘Nothing,’ she said coolly. ‘I have a message for you, from the Crown Agent, Joe Dowley. I went to see him after our discussion and I told him what you wanted me to do. He went ballistic. I am to tell you, on his instructions, that there is no way that anybody in the Crown Office leaked the contents of that report, and that if you ever again make the slightest implication that there might be, he will have your guts for garters. He says that the buck stops with you and if you have a problem with that he’ll go to Sir James Proud, your chief constable.’

Neil McIlhenney could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times that he had lost his temper in his adult life. At that moment he knew that he would have to bring the other hand into play.

‘He said what?’ he exploded. ‘You tell Mr Dowley from me that I didn’t ask for his opinion, nor do I give a fuck about it. I’m engaged in a murder investigation and I require the assistance of his office. And tell him this too, Joanna, word for word. If he ever threatens me again I will head straight up to Chambers Street and rip his nuts off!’

‘He’s not going to like that.’

‘Too fucking true he’s not!’ He slammed the phone back into its cradle.