Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #3: Books 9-12 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [reading in the dark TXT] 📗

He sighed. “I’m getting a bit of flack, to be honest. The people upstairs are asking questions about the direction this case is taking. It started out a clear cut case of murder, and now suddenly we have senior political figures getting dragged in…”

I raised my eyebrows. “We do?”

His look of embarrassment deepened. “Well, Lord Chiddester…”

Dehan was frowning. “I’m confused. Isn’t he the victim’s father? That isn’t exactly getting dragged in, Harry. He’s not her father because somebody came up with a crazy theory. He’s her father because Chiddie and Fi begat Katie.”

“Yes, I know that, but…”

“But all the clues keep leading to politics instead of guys in tinfoil hats.”

He sighed again. “Something like that.”

Dehan made a face and leaned back in her chair. “You’re not wrong…” She glanced at me and I nodded. She went on, “Chiddester and his wife believe that Katie was investigating ties between the Labour Party, Marxist groups and Al Qaeda cells in London.”

He rubbed his face with his hands. “Bloody hell, I was dreading as much.”

I said, “It gets worse, Harry.”

He looked away and shook his head. “How?”

“She thought the trail led back to a shadow cabinet minister… Justin…?”

Dehan said, “Justin Caulfield.”

“The Shadow Foreign Secretary.”

He had gone the color of wet ash.

I spread my hands. “If she was right, it could be your chance, Harry. Pull it off, close the case, write the book, get rich and save your marriage.”

He showed me a face that said I was out of my mind. “You have to be joking.”

“C’mon, Harry! What happened to your killer instinct? If she’s right, you have a son of a bitch poised to become Foreign Secretary, or worse, Prime Minister; a bastard who is prepared to foster terrorism and murder a young woman to save his own neck. Go get this bastard!”

He sighed. “Do you give credence to it?” He turned to Dehan. “Do you?”

Dehan made a face. “Right now, I don’t see any reason not to. Plus…” She glanced at me.

I said, “Harry, if you’ll forgive me, I think you are looking at this the wrong way. I think you’ve got so freaked by the political implications that you have stopped looking at the evidence. You are a cop, you are not a politician. Let them worry about the politics. You follow the evidence, wherever it may lead. And you nail the bastard.”

“So you do give it credence…”

I raised my thumb. “One, it is not the serial killer from fifteen years ago. So stop looking for him. Now follow the evidence. Where does it lead?” I frowned and dropped my hand. “Speaking of which, I didn’t hear from the lab. What happened with Johnson’s sample? Also the sheets from Katie’s apartment and her house.”

He took a big breath, then seemed to sag as he let it out. “OK, the sample you brought us. It’s a match for Johnson…”

“Stop.” I pulled out my phone and emailed the Inspector: DNA under my wife’s nails a match for Brad Johnson. Her file attached. Request you back me up on this one Sir. He needs to be tried in Arizona.

I attached the file Harry’s secretary had sent me and sent it to the Inspector, back at the 43rd. When I had finished, I said, “Go on.”

“There was DNA on the sheets. We haven’t found a match yet. But…” He sighed again and wouldn’t look at us. “I’m sorry, John, Carmen. I feel awful. It was me who asked you to help on this case, and I feel just terrible.” Finally he looked at me. “I had to report to my superiors, and to the Crown Prosecution Service, how we came by that sample—the Brad Johnson sample. Of course, the judge will have to rule on its probative value, but however he rules, my DCI…”

He paused. I smiled, leaned forward and slapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t sweat it, Harry. It’s me who should be apologizing to you. It was unforgivable of me to behave like that when you had recommended me as a consultant. I will apologize personally to your DCI.”

“That’s big of you… but…”

“What you’re trying to tell us is that he wants us off the case and he’d like us to go back to New York.”

He nodded.

“Well, that’s not unexpected. Don’t feel bad. My behavior was unacceptable, and I am sorry I caused you embarrassment.”

He stared at me for a long moment. “That is a very gracious apology, John, but I know what you’re saying. You’re saying you’d do it all again if you had to.”

I nodded. “I got the son of a bitch who killed my wife. And I will have him extradited and I’ll see him tried in Arizona.”

He went very quiet. Dehan watched him without speaking. Finally, he said, “That’s it, isn’t it? It’s what we both had, but I lost.” He turned his head to look at me. “You lost Hattie, and it made you more aggressive, more tenacious, more determined. I kept my wife, had kids, made a family, and that made me more ready to compromise, to keep the status quo, to avoid upsetting the apple cart. I was wrong to do that.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not going to tell you what to do, Harry, or how to do it. But if you want my opinion, it’s this: if you’re going to be a cop, be the best cop you can, and that means you bring down the Archbishop of Canterbury if he breaks the law. If you can’t do that, do something else that allows you to be with your wife and kids. But don’t hang in the middle.”

We stared at each other a moment, then Dehan said, “We done with the life coaching seminar?