Blindside (5 page)

‘You ready?’ Cahill asked, holding up his watch and tapping on the face of it. ‘Just gone two.’

Logan looked at his own watch, surprised to see that Cahill was right. He had worked through lunch without noticing.

‘I guess I got caught up in this stuff,’ Logan said, standing to follow Cahill as he left the room.

Hardy was waiting for them back in the War Room, sipping from a bottle of water and watching more news coverage of the crash.

‘Anything new?’ Cahill asked.

‘Nope. Usual talk about recovering the black box and waiting till they know more before reaching any conclusions.’

‘Still no mention of terrorists?’

‘Nothing. Looks like it was an accident from what they’re saying, but who knows what they might be holding back?’

Logan sat beside Hardy and pulled the conference phone towards him.

‘If it’s not terrorists, then why all the secrecy about your friend?’ Logan asked.

Cahill shrugged and sat beside Logan.

‘Let’s call your contact and see what she can tell us.’

Logan picked up the phone handset and punched in the number he had for Susan Jones at the Department of Homeland Security in New York.

‘I’m looking for Susan Jones,’ he said when a man answered.

He was put on hold and pressed a button to activate the conference setting on the phone. A Tom Petty song started playing.

‘Nice hold music,’ Hardy said, tapping a pen on the table in time with the music.

The music stopped and the same man came back on to the line.

‘Sir, who may I say is calling?’

‘Logan Finch.’

Tom Petty was back on. Hardy started humming along.

‘Logan, hi,’ Susan Jones said after a minute. ‘It’s been a while. How are you?’

She sounded incredibly bright and upbeat, which was what Logan remembered about her. That and the killer cheekbones.

‘I’m good. How’s things with you?’

‘Oh, you know. Still trying to keep the world safe from harm.’

She laughed – a high, flutey sound. Logan always thought that it was totally at odds with such a tall, athletic woman.

‘I’ve got you on speakerphone, Susan. Is that okay?’

Letting her know not to talk about anything other than business. Logan glanced at Cahill who winked at him.

‘Sure. Who have you got there? Clients getting roughed up at one of our airports?’

‘Uh, no. I’m not with Kennedy Boyd any more. I mean, I left private practice altogether.’

‘Good for you. I never did like lawyers.’

The laugh again.

‘I’m with a security company. Close protection. I’ve got two of the team here. Alex Cahill and Tom Hardy.’

They both said hello.

‘Fine, upstanding Americans, by the sound of it.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ Hardy said.

‘Southern manners,’ she laughed. ‘What’s up?’

‘Have you heard about the crash over in Denver?’ Logan asked.

‘Of course. Awful, isn’t it?’

There was no tell-tale change in her tone.

‘We had a call from someone who thinks that her husband was on the flight …’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘… but the airline has no record of his name on the passenger manifest.’

‘Okay. I’m not sure what this has to do with DHS.’

‘Well, Alex called the airline and they put him on hold and when they came back on it was someone from law enforcement.’

‘FBI, I think,’ Cahill said.

Jones was silent, though they could hear the sound of her fingers tapping on a keyboard.

Cahill hit the mute button.

‘She’s going to cut us off,’ he said to Logan. ‘More cover-up bullshit.’

Logan held up a hand and re-activated the phone.

‘Susan, is there anything you can tell us about that flight?’ Logan asked.

‘I’m checking our systems. Hold on.’

Tap-tap-tap

‘No alerts at our end that I can see. What’s your friend’s name?’

‘Tim Stark,’ Cahill said. ‘Used to be FBI and then Secret Service.’

‘Oh my. Let me check the name and see what I can find. Call you back in five.’

Five stretched to ten, stretched to twenty.

The phone rang. Logan pressed the button to answer and activate the speaker.

‘Logan, it’s Susan.’

‘That was a long five minutes.’ He tried to keep his voice light.

‘I know. There’s a flag on your man Stark.’

Cahill frowned. ‘Why?’ he asked.

‘I can’t tell you that. In fact, I shouldn’t really tell you anything else.’

‘He’s just about the most patriotic guy I know,’ Cahill said. ‘Bleeds red, white and blue. And he has a wife at home who’s tearing her hair out in a panic because nobody will tell her anything about what’s going on.’

‘I’m sorry. I can’t say any more.’

‘Can you tell us if he was on the flight?’ Logan asked.

‘At least that,’ Cahill said. ‘Please.’

She was quiet.

‘Susan …’ Logan said.

‘Tim Stark wasn’t listed on the flight,’ she said. ‘But the manifest shows that John Reece was on it.’

Cahill leaned back in his chair, looked at Hardy and shook his head.

‘Thanks, Susan,’ Cahill said. ‘I appreciate it.’

‘No problem. And I’m sorry.’

She ended the call.

Logan looked from Cahill to Hardy and back again. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked.

‘She just told us that Tim was on the flight.’

‘That’s not what she said.’

‘What she said was, he was on the flight using an assumed name.’

‘Which means what?’

Cahill didn’t reply.

‘It means that he’s dead,’ Hardy said.

11

Cahill stood and stretched.

‘Is that it?’ Logan asked.

‘It’s as much as she can tell us, and she shouldn’t even have said that. We can’t push it with her any further.’

‘So what are you going to do now?’

‘I’m going to make a very difficult phone call to Melanie Stark to tell her that her husband is dead. I need to do it alone.’

Cahill left Logan and Hardy in the War Room and walked to his office at the south-west corner of the building. It was bigger than Logan’s office, but not ostentatious. He had a couch as well as a similar desk and shelving unit. His desk was covered with photographs of his wife and two girls.

He sat at the desk and lifted his phone. After a moment, he dialled Melanie Stark’s number. A man answered.

‘I’m looking for Melanie Stark,’ Cahill said.

‘This is her son. Can I help?’

Cahill thought: your mother will need your help shortly.

‘No, thanks. I need to speak to Melanie.’

‘What’s this about?’ He started to sound tense.

Cahill heard a woman’s voice in the background asking who was on the phone.

‘My name is Alex Cahill and I’m a friend of your dad. Your mom will want to speak to me, son.’

‘Hold on.’

The phone clattered down on a hard surface. Cahill pulled his own phone away from his ear at the noise. He couldn’t blame the boy for being upset – angry even. Cahill felt some of that himself.

‘Alex,’ Melanie Stark said, picking up the phone. ‘What have you heard?’

‘Does the name John Reece mean anything to you?’

Pause. ‘No. I mean, I don’t think so. I never heard it before.’

‘Never seen that name written down anywhere in the house?’

‘Alex, what’s this about? Does this man Reece have anything to do with what Tim’s caught up in?’

‘Sort of.’

‘Alex …’ She knew that he was stalling.

‘Melanie …’

Always the bad news is preceded by the name, spoken softly. Like it helps.

‘No …’

‘I can’t be totally certain, but the information I have makes me believe that Tim was on that flight out of Denver.’

No sound this time.

‘I’m so sorry, Melanie. I really am.’

He could hear the scream starting way down inside her, rising up from a place so deep inside that no person should ever have to know the pain it brought as it burst up and out. Cahill had heard it before. Too many times.

‘If it helps,’ Cahill said, ‘I can’t believe that Tim was involved in something illegal. That’s not the Tim I knew.’

He knew he’d said it already today, but what else was there to say?

‘Are … you … sure?’ She was barely able to get the word out between sobs.

‘As sure as I can be. He was on that plane when it went down.’

‘I can’t …’

The line disconnected.

Cahill stood and went to the window, looking down at the people passing by outside.

What were you doing on that plane, Tim?

12

Irvine found DS Ewen Cameron when she got back to Pitt Street from the riverside. She explained that she had to go to a briefing on a new case and that she didn’t know how long it would be. He didn’t seem too bothered, his head buried in a mountain of paperwork that was expanding on a daily basis.

Kenny Armstrong headed off to find the senior SCDEA guys. They had called to say the briefing was already set up somewhere in the building.

Irvine didn’t want to hold things up, but she was keen to get a head start on the inquiry: knew that the first couple of days were crucial in solving any murder. She called the mortuary to find out about the post-mortem and was told that it was scheduled for tomorrow.

After that she called the CCTV ops room down at the Fruitmarket and spoke to someone about getting the recordings for the last few days sent over to see if they could track the girl’s movements in the city centre. They said they’d do what they could, but they were short staffed this week.

Armstrong came into the room and waved at her to come over.

‘They’re all set upstairs,’ he said.

‘Okay. Can we hold for another couple of minutes? I want to check in with DS Murphy, our crime scene guy.’

‘You go see him and I’ll tell my guys to wait. We’re on the second floor, last door on the left.’

‘I’ll walk up with you. Murphy’s on the same floor.’

Jim Murphy stared at Irvine over rectangular glasses that had slipped down his nose, a heavy fringe flopping down on to his forehead. He reminded Irvine of her old history teacher, sitting there in his black V-neck with a white shirt and paisley-patterned tie.

‘The floater?’ he asked as she reached his desk.

She nodded.

‘I got nothing for you yet. Still waiting for the lab geeks upstairs to let me know what they collected at the locus.’

‘Okay. Let me know when you do get anything.’

Irvine knew that Murphy could be ponderous and sometimes needed a kick. Murphy preferred to think of it as being methodical and diligent.

‘I called the Fruitmarket,’ Irvine said as she turned to leave. ‘You know, for the CCTV.’

He knew: nodded slowly.

‘And the pathologist. Post-mortem is tomorrow. Can you keep on top of all that for me?’

His head retracted like a tortoise.

Irvine took it as a ‘yes’.

The briefing room at the end of the hall was already busy with other officers and was set up conference-style with rows of chairs facing a long table that had three more chairs behind it. Everyone was in plain clothes except Eric Thomson and Bryan Fraser – the senior SCDEA officers Irvine had met at the scene that morning. They sat at the long table.

She was glad to see that there was a coffee pot on a table at the side of the room. She filled two cardboard cups and sat next to Armstrong, handing him one of the cups. He gulped at it. The woman on the other side of Armstrong fidgeted with a thin blue folder which was open on her lap. Irvine had seen her around the building and guessed she was one of the force’s drug officers and not with the SCDEA.

Paul Warren – the SCDEA Director General – came into the room
and pushed the door closed before taking up position behind the empty third chair at the long table. There were seven people sitting in the chairs facing the table.

‘Everyone say hello to DC Irvine from the CID,’ Warren said.

Irvine held her hand up. The others looked at her and nodded.

‘There should be packs under your seat with the briefing material,’ Warren said. ‘So grab one if you don’t have it already.’

Irvine now saw that everyone except her and Armstrong had one of the blue folders with a sheaf of papers inside. She put her coffee down on the floor and reached under her seat to grab the folder there. Armstrong followed her lead and did the same.

Irvine flicked through the papers quickly, seeing extracts from three post-mortem reports for the previous deaths and some jargon-heavy stuff about drug types. The drug references went over her head.

‘Eric is going to take you through this.’

Warren sat down and his Director of Operations stood.

‘I’ll give you the basics,’ Eric Thomson said. ‘We had, as most of you know, a fourth death this morning. It’s a different ball game now. Young girl. Teenager.’

He paused to let this sink in.

‘The main substance found in the three previous victims was fentanyl. And there were also the same lower levels of heroin.’

Someone spoke from the front row of seats.

‘Same levels in all the victims?’

‘No,’ Thomson replied. ‘Slight variations in each of the three. And we’ll have to wait for the post-mortem results from the victim today.’

‘Somebody experimenting?’

‘Too early to say definitively. But we’ve brought more people in to this task force because that’s how it looks. As of today we’re treating all the deaths as suspicious. I mean, beyond the fact that illegal drugs were involved. That’s why CID is here.’

Thomson looked quickly at Irvine before scanning the room.

‘We’re treating them all as murders now,’ Warren said. ‘Someone knowingly sells bad gear, they deserve all they get.’

‘What we seem to be dealing with here,’ Thomson went on, ‘is a new
product in the market. From what we’ve been able to find out so far it’s being distributed in the usual channels. There are no new dealers we know of and the deaths can be traced back to buys from different dealers.’

‘That’s why we think it’s probably a new wholesaler,’ Warren interrupted. ‘If all of a sudden it was a new retail crew on the scene there would be the usual territorial flare-ups. We’d have seen, and heard, something from our informants. A wholesale business can keep it under the radar more easily.’