Preface to Murder, M Morris [best selling autobiographies TXT] 📗

‘There are other detectives at Thames Valley Police,’ she’d felt obliged to point out. ‘And I have a team I could delegate to.’ She almost wished her father would just admit defeat and then the decision would be made for her.

In the end they’d agreed to ‘wait and see how things are in a few days.’ It was a very British response, Bridget thought. Wait and see. Don’t make any rash decisions. Stay calm and carry on. Vanessa, of course, took a different opinion. When Bridget had informed her – not without a certain trepidation – of her decision to stay in Oxford for now, Vanessa had made it abundantly clear that it was a good thing that at least one of them was willing to drop all her commitments and fly down to Lyme Regis on a mercy mission. Vanessa the martyr, Bridget had thought indignantly after they’d ended their less than harmonious phone call. Now she wondered if Vanessa wasn’t actually a saint, and she, Bridget, just a selfish person.

Well, she’d made her decision – she could always change her mind at the weekend – and for now the only thing to do was to get on with work. She clicked on her email and immediately discovered the first bad news of the day.

An email from forensics informed her that the Head of Department at the Blavatnik was not the author of the death threat. Or, at the very least, there was no evidence to link the letter that had been sent to Diane with the sample of handwriting that Professor Al-Mutairi had provided. But if Al-Mutairi hadn’t written the letter, who had?

It was not a propitious start to the day. It seemed to Bridget as if every possible lead on this case was squashed almost as soon as it was suggested. Her meetings at the Saudi Embassy and with MI5 had come to nothing. There was still no ID on the sender of the death threat. Still no clear picture of how the intruder had entered Diane’s property. And still the mystery of the payments into Diane’s bank account. Despite her team’s hard work, Bridget felt like she was no further forward now than she had been at the beginning of the enquiry.

What had Michael Dearlove told her? Forget it. Walk away. And yet she could not. It wasn’t just a murder investigation that hung in the balance, it was her own career. If Grayson carried out his threat to bring in Baxter, she would never have a chance to vindicate herself. She thought too of PC Sam Roberts and PC Scott Wallis. The two young constables were already suspended from duty, and Bridget owed it to them to uncover exactly what had happened that fateful night. She hoped that the other members of her team would have something more positive to report.

‘Who wants to go first?’ she asked, scanning the room for volunteers once they were all assembled.

After a moment Jake stepped forward. ‘I’ve had a reply from the authorities in the Cayman Islands.’

At last. Bridget felt her hopes rise. Was this the breakthrough she had been waiting for so desperately?

‘So,’ said Jake. ‘The company register shows that Diane was the sole shareholder of Per Sempre Holdings, and she was also listed as its director. The registered address isn’t a proper street address, just a mailbox with a forwarding service. So it seems to be just a shell company, with no actual office or employees.’

‘So what is this outfit?’ asked Ryan. ‘Some kind of money laundering operation?’

‘Not necessarily,’ said Jake. ‘Not all shell companies are a front for illegal activities. There are legitimate reasons for setting up a company in that way. Maybe for tax reasons. Companies registered in the Cayman Islands pay no business taxes, and there’s no inheritance tax to pay on the death of a shareholder.’

‘Still sounds dodgy to me,’ said Ryan.

‘But where was the company’s money coming from?’ asked Bridget.

‘I was coming to that,’ said Jake. ‘We still don’t know. The company register only tells us the officially registered information. It doesn’t reveal anything about the business’s operations. So now I’ve submitted another request to access the company’s bank details. Once I have that, we’ll be able to see the source of the income.’

 ‘How long will that take?’ It was hard for Bridget to keep the frustration out of her voice.

‘I’m not sure, ma’am. It’s been difficult working with the Cayman Islands because of the time difference. They won’t be up for hours yet, and they don’t seem to have much sense of urgency.’

‘Okay, well keep trying.’ She turned to Ffion. ‘Any progress on the laptop?’

‘Not yet, but I have some ideas. I went back to Diane’s house yesterday and picked up a selection of books. I started reading through them last night. Diane seems to have been very interested in cryptography, and in steganography in particular.’

‘Too many long words for this time in the morning,’ quipped Ryan, stifling a yawn.

Ffion gave him a withering look. ‘Steganography means “concealed writing”. It’s from the Greek.’

‘Of course it is,’ said Ryan. ‘Silly me.’

‘It’s the technique of concealing one message within another. For example, hiding secret text within plain text, or an image within another image, or a video within a video.’

‘How does this relate to Diane’s laptop?’ asked Bridget.

‘I’m going to see if I can use the method to work out her password.’

‘All right, good.’ Bridget decided to trust Ffion’s judgment and leave her to it. It wasn’t like she had any better ideas herself. ‘What about the cocktail of chemicals that was used to kill Diane? Phosphorous, magnesium and potassium. Where did they come from? Who could have got hold of them? Are we any further forward?’

Ryan shrugged and even Ffion looked blank.

Harry raised a tentative hand. ‘Ma’am, you find them in