The Invisible Code (17 page)

‘You read my mind. It’s not like you haven’t been out to dinner with me before.’

‘Funnily enough, I don’t count sitting on bins all night doing surveillance while you eat chicken jalfrezi out of a box. First one to finish calls the other.’

Meera headed into the nearest building on her side of the square.

Back at the unit on Caledonian Road, Dan Banbury went to see John May. ‘We’ve got a match on the girl,’ he said. ‘It’s definitely the same kid in both screen grabs, the shot from Salisbury Court and the Coram’s Fields footage. It’s just a piece of software that matches physical features and body shapes, so I don’t have an ID for you, but we’re working on it. I put a rush on the test fibres from the Waters apartment and we have a match on those, but it doesn’t make sense to me.’

‘You’re talking about the hairs?’

‘They’re from Sabira Kasavian.’

‘So they were lovers.’

‘I didn’t say that,’ Banbury hedged. ‘They just place her in his bed.’

‘What, you think she came by to read the Sunday papers with him or something? If she isn’t a murderess she at least cheated on her husband, which means she lied to us.’

‘I don’t know that she did.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Something’s not kosher. I tried to picture what happened. Waters invites her back to his flat, or Sabira calls on him. Women are more prone to shedding signifying evidence than men. Make-up and long hairs with traceable
dyes, a wider variety of clothing materials; my missus leaves a trail of tissues and trash wherever she goes, and if she opens a handbag – well, it’s like Vesuvius. It might have cost her a grand at a fancy store but basically it’s a dustbin with a strap. God help her if she ever tries to have an affair, I’d be on her like—’

‘Dan, get to the point.’

‘Sorry, John. Kasavian often works late, but hasn’t been out of the country in more than two months, which means she wouldn’t have stayed over. Even so, I’d expect something else in Waters’s flat – a visit to the bathroom, something from the lounge sofa or the kitchen, but there’s nothing. And it’s not just her, there’s nothing from anyone else other than Waters in the whole place.’

‘So you’re saying someone planted the hairs.’

‘More than that, I’m saying they cleaned the flat up so we’d only find the hairs. There’s nothing else there to contaminate the evidence. It’s like someone wants to guarantee that she gets the blame.’

‘Is there any way of proving it?’

‘That’s the problem, John, it’s just a feeling. Even in the cleanest flats you find alien matter and have to eliminate it piece by piece, but not this time. Two perfect long hairs, one placed where it couldn’t be missed, on the pillow, the other conveniently left in the laundry basket between shirts so I can easily date it. I could buy the evidence as it stands, but in my experience it just doesn’t feel right.’

‘So you think someone planted the evidence to discredit her?’

‘If there was someone in her husband’s circle who was determined to frame her, this would be a bloody good way to do it.’

‘With the motive of destabilizing Kasavian just as he’s trying to push through the UK side of the borders initiative.’

‘Exactly. The crazier the wife looks, the worse it reflects
on his judgement. I’d start looking into his department, and see who’s got the most to gain by causing his downfall.’

‘Home Office Security is notoriously secretive. I very much doubt there’s any way of getting to their inner circle.’

‘Then I think you need to find a way before something else happens,’ Banbury warned.

18

LUCY

WHEN SHE TRIED
Royal Oak Recruitment Services, Meera Mangeshkar struck it lucky.

The receptionist immediately singled out one employee. ‘Andrew Mansfield,’ she said. ‘A lovely man, but a real workaholic. He’s here nearly every weekend, never takes his holiday allowance. His ex-wife works nearby and they look after the children between them, two boys and a girl.’ She tapped the blurry photograph. ‘And that’s definitely little Lucy. She’s wearing her favourite yellow top. She’s – well, she’s quite a handful. Knows her own mind, that one does.’

‘Do you know if Mr Mansfield was working last Saturday morning?’

‘Oh, he’d have been here. We had a rush job on all last week. Lucy was probably with him.’

‘Could I see him?’

‘He won’t like being interrupted, but let me try.’ She rang Mansfield’s office and persuaded him to grant Meera an audience.

Meera called Colin and told him to come over. Together they headed for the fourth floor. The sight of so many
tightly arranged cubicles made Meera feel claustrophobic.
Fancy working in here every day
, she thought.
Give me the streets any time
.

Mansfield could not have been older than forty, but looked as if he was about to drop dead. His grey suit matched his skin and hung about him like a flag. His shirt collar was a size too big, and his dark eyes were sunken and lifeless. He seemed to find it an effort to speak, and had already forgotten who his visitors were.

‘We’re from a central London crimes unit investigating two incidents that your daughter may have witnessed,’ Meera explained again. ‘It may be the case that she didn’t register seeing anything she considered to be out of the ordinary, so we need to talk to her in order to form a fuller picture of the events.’

‘Where did these “events” happen?’ asked Mansfield distractedly. His BlackBerry buzzed and he reached for it.

‘You can leave that for a minute,’ Meera warned. ‘One was on Saturday last around lunchtime, out in the square.’

‘She was here. She went downstairs to play with Tom Penry, one of my colleague’s boys. If you want to interview him, I can probably arrange that. You said there were two incidents.’

‘Yes, the other was in Coram’s Fields in Bloomsbury yesterday afternoon at around four p.m.’

Mansfield shook his head blearily, as if trying to clear it of clouds. ‘No, I don’t think I know—’

‘It’s a park just opposite the Brunswick Centre.’

‘Oh God, yes. She ran off to look at the animals. We’d stopped in the farmers’ market. I was dying for a cigarette and trying to take my mind off it, so I stopped at a bookstall. It was very busy there. Lucy was watching a man making pancakes. When I turned back I couldn’t find her.’

‘How long was she gone?’

‘I don’t know – five or ten minutes, something like that. She’s very independent, quite fearless, always going up to strangers and chatting. I try to stop her. She’s smart, though, a good judge of character.’

‘She’s still a little girl, Mr Mansfield.’

‘I searched the market, then remembered the park opposite. That joins on to Coram’s Fields, doesn’t it? There’s a petting zoo there.’

‘So you left the centre and headed there?’

‘There’s a crossing going all the way over from the Brunswick Centre to the edge of the park. I followed the railings down the side and then I saw her running towards me. She said something about seeing a friend. She makes stuff up all the time.’

‘Did you see the friend?’ asked Meera.

‘No, I was a bit angry that she’d run off again, but we were late for her optician’s appointment, so I let it go.’

‘Would it be possible to talk to her later today?’

‘I’m picking her up from school at four because she needs to go back to have her glasses adjusted. Could I leave you to take her and do the interview afterwards? I’ve got a lot of work on this afternoon.’

‘No, Mr Mansfield,’ said Meera firmly. ‘You have to pick up your own daughter. I don’t think she’d want to be met at the school by a complete stranger.’

‘All right,’ said Mansfield finally, ‘but it’s just adding to my problems today.’

Meera scowled back at the offices as they left. ‘When Mansfield keels over and dies on the job, leaving his children without a father, I wonder if his bosses will show their appreciation for all the hard work he put in,’ she said.

‘Divorced working parents competing over the kids.’ Colin gave a shrug. ‘I bet little Lucy gets a lot of terrific presents.’

Colin checked the name he had written in his notepad.
The boy, Tom Penry, attended the same school as Lucy Mansfield, but was in a lower year.

‘Don’t take this the wrong way, Meera, but I don’t think you should interview the girl.’

‘What, you think I’m going to scare her or something?’

‘Sometimes you scare me. Get Janice to do it – she’s brilliant with kids.’

‘But I’m younger, I’m closer to the kid’s age than her. Plus I’m a lot shorter, which kids like.’

‘Yeah, but she’s … you know, more patient.’

Meera finally agreed to the idea, but Colin could tell he had hurt her feelings.

‘There was somebody out there in the garden, I swear to you,’ said Sabira Kasavian. ‘He was staring up at me, watching my room, but when I looked again he was gone. Believe me, I know exactly how that sounds but he was there. Go and look at the ground if you don’t believe me. It was wet; he must have left footprints.’

Longbright had looked in on Sabira because the Cedar Tree Clinic was just up the road from Lucy Mansfield’s school, where she had arranged to meet the girl with her father. She had been instructed to break the news about Jeff Waters before Sabira had a chance to find out accidentally. It was rare for someone to be killed in one of London’s public parks, and reports of the murder had started to hit the press, although details were vague.

Sabira was seated in one of the clinic’s empty afternoon lounges. Her mood had changed to one of tetchy anxiety. It was as if she was coming down from a night of drug-bingeing. Longbright sensed she would have to go easy with her.

‘Why would someone come here just to watch you?’ she asked gently.

‘They want me to know that I’m always being watched, that I’ll always be watched until …’

‘Until what?’

‘Until I kill myself.’

‘What makes you think these people want you to kill yourself?’

‘They leave notes telling me to.’ There was something sinister about the way in which Sabira seemed resigned to her persecution.

‘Do you have any of these notes that I could look at?’

‘No, I threw them all away.’

‘Where? At home, in the kitchen bin?’

‘Oh, in the street somewhere.’

‘Do you ever have suicidal thoughts, Sabira?’

‘Suicide is for people who can’t see a way out of their situation. Even when we had terrible problems at home, I would always try to find a solution.’

‘And now?’

‘Now there really is no way out. I suppose I could run away, go back to Albania, but I would not even be safe there.’

Longbright rubbed her arms. The room had grown suddenly cold. ‘Sabira, I’m trying to think about this logically. What do you know that could make someone reach out and try to kill you in another country?’

‘It’s too big to talk about. As big as the world itself. A global conspiracy. They have people everywhere. They will track me down and kill me, then make it look as if I killed myself.’ The sudden clatter of teacups in the next room made them both start. ‘I had proof – I swear I did – but it disappeared without ever leaving my hands, just as if it never existed. They came and took it from me while I slept.’

This was textbook paranoid delusion, Longbright realized. Sabira didn’t think one particular person was out to kill her, she thought the world meant her harm. ‘If you don’t tell us why people want to hurt you, it’s very hard for us to help you,’ she pointed out.

‘There’s no one I can trust. And if I could trust them, I wouldn’t be able to protect them.’

‘You can trust me.’

Sabira shook her head violently. ‘No, you’re the last person I can confide in – surely you must see that?’

Longbright had serious doubts about introducing the subject of Waters’s death, but there were computers and televisions scattered throughout the clinic, and the last thing Sabira needed to see right now was a sensationalistic report on the murder of an acquaintance in broad daylight.

‘Sabira, we know you befriended the photographer assigned to cover your public appearances. We spoke to him.’