Lockdown

Forty-six

‘You want me to one-eighty this investigation on the word of a teenage hooker you found in a strip club? Which, incidentally, you entered carrying a firearm. You keep going the way you are, Lock, and we’re gonna have to get some new felonies on the books just to keep up.’

‘But you’ll look into it?’

Lock had known Frisk would be a hard sell. Hell, he wasn’t even sure that Carrie believed him. But here he was in Frisk’s office asking the man for a favour.

‘For what it’s worth,’ Frisk said.

‘All I’m asking you to do is keep an open mind.’

‘This wouldn’t have anything to do with Brand replacing you as Meditech’s head of security, would it?’

‘I’m convalescing.’

‘Most people do that at home in bed with a nice bowl of chicken soup.’

Lock smiled. ‘I didn’t say I was any good at it.’

Frisk opened the bottom drawer of his desk and dug out a plastic Tupperware container. ‘The wife makes me lunch. You know, try to ensure I eat my greens.’ He took the top off and held it up for Lock to inspect. ‘I mean, seriously, would you eat this shit?’

Lock waved it away.

‘You’ve had a boner for Brand since the first time I met you,’ Frisk continued.

‘He’s had a boner for me.’

‘Volunteering to testify against one of your own guys? Wouldn’t that usually get you fragged in the military?’

‘Not where I served. Not if someone had crossed the line.’

‘Oh yeah, I forgot you served with the Limeys. That why you and Brand don’t get along?’

‘Head over to Scotland. Try calling them Limeys and see what happens. I served in the same branch of the military as my father. I served his memory. Took a lot of shit from both sides for being a mutt while I was doing it. But I’ve never felt the need to wrap myself in any flag in order to prove my patriotism.’

‘Nice speech,’ Frisk said, putting the lid back on his lunch box. ‘Look, I have a perp.’

‘Who didn’t do it.’

‘There’s evidence you’re not aware of.’

‘Such as?’

Frisk stood up. ‘Who the hell are you anyway, Lock? Just some hired hand.’

‘This case is bullshit, and you know it.’

‘I know I’ve got a guy who’s now admitted to digging up Eleanor Van Straten’s body, and who was at the handover. All you’ve got is the fact that one of your co-workers was schtupping Richard Hulme’s nanny.’

‘Who had to have been involved in the kidnapping.’

‘A few months earlier she’d been giving out handjobs in the back of a strip club, so how do you know she wasn’t dropping her panties for more than one guy?’

Lock flashed back to the minutes he’d spent in Natalya’s bedroom after Richard Hulme had tracked him down. It seemed like a lifetime ago, but he could still see in his mind’s eye the photograph of the young girl with her family. All that optimism, all that promise. He clenched his right fist and started to draw it back, not even fully conscious that he was doing it.

Frisk watched the blood drain from Lock’s knuckles as he took a step back. ‘That would be an extremely bad idea.’

Lock was aware of a couple of agents at nearby desks watching him.

‘Y’know, when I heard about you running towards that sniper, I thought you just might be crazy. But now I’m positive.’

Lock took a deep breath and counted to ten slowly.

‘Are we done here?’ Frisk asked him.

‘Well, seeing as you brought it up. What about Gray Stokes? Anyone going to be charged with his murder?’

‘It’s ongoing.’

‘What did forensics say about the rifle that killed Stokes?’

‘An M-107 fifty cal sniper rifle.’

‘Traceable?’

‘Missing from a combat unit serving in Iraq.’

‘So we’re probably looking at ex-service personnel,’ Lock stated flatly.

‘I’d say that would be a fair assumption.’

‘And that doesn’t fit any of the animal rights people.’

‘They’re not all known to us,’ Frisk objected. ‘Hell, Cody Parker kept a pretty low profile, and look what he was capable of.’

‘Listen, when I went in the back of that store, I knew straight off I was dealing with something more than a bunch of people who break out in a rash about a beagle being handed a pack of smokes. If someone was prepared to go to all the trouble of laying their hands on an M-107, and learning how to use it, you think they’d miss Van Straten and get the other guy?’

Frisk put on his coat and strode towards the door. ‘For Christ’s sake, Lock, next time bring me something more than a grudge.’