Fallen Gods

Forty-Nine

"We've got to take a decision on this, Stevie." There was a degree of impatience in George Regan's tone, but Steele tolerated it, partly because he liked the gruff detective sergeant, but mainly because this time he knew that he was right.

"Go on, then," he conceded. "Talk it through."

"Okay. We've been through the Candela and Finch staff lists, concentrating on males, because whatever the Vargas woman might have put in her picture, the God who made that wind-up call to Andrea Strachan was definitely a man.

"We've still got Sheringham in the frame as a suspect, but without any supporting evidence that puts him in possession of the materials it took to make the incendiary device, that's all he'll ever be. Plus, though he accepts that the call to the girl was made from his phone, he maintains someone else nicked it and made it."

"And that," Steele interjected, 'could only have happened during the staff party."

"Right; that gives us a list, if we leave in the partners, of one hundred and thirty-seven males, one hundred and nineteen, if we take them out. Take away Sheringham and we've got a hundred and eighteen."

"But were they all there?"

"I've asked Mr. Candela that; he checked and told me that eleven staff members were out of town on business last Friday evening. So we've got a hundred and seven men potentially in the frame. After the incident on Saturday we interviewed all the staff members who were there, and all eighteen partners. Of the staff people we spoke to, twenty-three of them were males, not counting Sheringham."

"But can we rule out the possibility that the bomb was triggered from outside the building?"

"No, but if we take this further, we go there second. I'd say we must concentrate on the people who were actually inside the room. Even at that, though, Stevie, if we're going to be thorough and not rule out people on grounds of importance, we've got a list of forty-one. I've got all their statements sorted out for us to go through in detail, but I've had a quick shuftie through them, and nothing jumped out at me.

None of them even mentioned Andrea, so how will anyone have spotted someone less noticeable?"

Steele nodded. "I take your point. I don't expect to get anything from the statements either, but they're all we've got. We can't get search warrants for forty-one people, forty-one bloody lawyers at that.

And we can't exactly ask all of them to talk to Andrea on a mobile phone and say "Hello, dear, this is God". It's a nice idea," he chuckled, 'and it might even be good therapy for Andrea, but it's not on. No, George, I agree with you. We'll probably have to go through these statements again, and maybe even re-interview a few people, but it's all just to show the bosses that we haven't stopped trying. This investigation is stalled, stuck, stone cold."

Regan sighed. "Still, best get on with it, and keep Dan Pringle happy." He reached for a pile of statements on his desk. "Do you want to split these down the middle?" He glanced at the inspector, and saw that he was staring ahead at nothing, with a frown on his face.

"Stevie?"

"What? Oh sorry, George. I was away for a minute, thinking of something Andrea said to me at lunch, and what it might mean." His eyes narrowed as he looked at his colleague. "What if our getting bogged down in this was the whole idea?"