Scratch Deeper (7 page)

‘Can you give me a physical description?' Iona cut in.

Hidden Shadow looked momentarily irritated at being interrupted. ‘He's quite tall – kind of gangly. Yeah?' He looked at his companion for confirmation.

Cropped-hair nodded. ‘About six feet, maybe just over. Probably ten stone, maximum. Thin shoulders, long neck. Quite a sharp face, high cheekbones, jaw – you know – angular.'

Toby tapped his throat. ‘Big Adam's apple.'

‘Yeah, big Adam's apple,' the other two chorused.

‘Hair?' Iona asked.

‘Black and thick,' Hidden Shadow replied. ‘Swept over in a side parting. Imagine a fast bowler in the Sri Lankan cricket team – that would be pretty much him.'

Iona noted everything down. ‘You said he was dressed differently. What was he wearing? A suit?'

‘No – chino-style trousers,' Hidden Shadow replied. ‘And a shirt. Sensible clothes, certainly not the jeans and hoodies he usually wore. So I follow him in and up to the second floor – where they have a good look at those architectural plans.'

‘They being the one calling himself Muttiah and his companion?' Iona realized her businesslike tone was now destroying the interview's laid-back approach she'd so carefully cultivated. ‘Can you describe the other one?'

Hidden Shadow thought for a moment. ‘Shorter, for a start. And he was wearing a baseball cap. He took it off inside the library and I could see he was a bit older. Meaner-looking, too.'

‘Why do you say that?'

‘Don't know,' he shrugged. ‘Just the expression on his face – he looked angry. Similar features, just older and angrier.'

New voices caused the volume of noise in the bar to suddenly increase. Iona glanced to her side: a group of people were filing in, creating a wall of bodies between her and the bottom of the stairs. A sense of being trapped suddenly flooded her and she felt the muscles in her legs tense. Looking down, she fought back the urge to jump from her seat and barge her way out. ‘How old, would you say?'

‘About thirty, at the most. Hair was short – looked like it would have been curly if it was longer.'

‘And about how tall?'

‘Oh, five-and-a-half feet, maybe less.' He focused on Iona. ‘Not that much taller than you. And he looked in good shape. Wiry sort of build to him, like a rock climber. When they got to the stairs in the library, he was up them like a shot. Two at a time, proper I-mean-business style. That's when I first realized he's not calling the other one Muttiah. He looked back at the first landing and goes, “Vasen!” Then he beckoned, like he was saying to hurry up.'

Sounds like this other guy was in charge, Iona thought. Maybe a more senior person in whatever organisation they're part of – if any. ‘And they're not speaking English?'

‘No – not sure what it was. But once they're at the book shelves, it's Vasen this and Vasen that.'

‘Would you recognize the language if you heard it again?' Iona wondered how easy it would be to get hold of a Sri Lankan audio tape. Probably simplest to go on YouTube and have a search there.

‘I'm not sure.'

‘But – previously – Muttiah claimed to be from Sri Lanka.'

‘That's what he said.'

‘Which would make him more South Asian than Middle Eastern.'

‘I suppose. But, no offence, if the person's wearing Western clothes, how can you easily tell? I mean, his skin was quite dark, hair black, eyes brown. I don't mean to sound racist, but you get my point?'

Iona nodded, aware her heart was beating more quickly than normal. The new arrivals were speaking too loudly, filling the place with a barrage of sound. ‘The companion,' she said more loudly. ‘You said facially, they were similar.'

‘Yeah – I'd say related. Like an older brother or something. I actually thought he could have been there for the Muttiah bloke's graduation ceremony – it would have explained the smart clothes.'

Iona tried to cut out the surrounding noise and think. The foyer of the library had to have CCTV. ‘And you first saw them outside the library?'

‘Yeah. The front steps. I was coming down, they were going in.'

‘Can you remember when exactly this was?'

‘End of my lunch break. Last Wednesday.'

‘Which is when, sometime around two o'clock?'

‘Yup – five to.'

That's my first task for tomorrow morning right there, Iona thought. Try and get a CCTV image of them. Until then, they remain faceless. She checked herself from thinking too far ahead: it might not be so easy to arrange another meeting with these guys. Just because it's bloody noisy and cramped down here, she thought, is not an excuse to rush things. You know Wallace will be looking for any gaps in the interview. ‘Anything more you can tell me about Muttiah? Did he ever mention where he lived, what he did when he wasn't with you, places he liked to eat at? That kind of stuff.'

Cropped-hair shook his head. ‘Looking back, it was always strictly tunnels with him. No idle chit-chat, just questions about if we'd seen this place, do we know a way into that.'

‘He never hung around after a trip? Came down here for a drink?'

‘We offered, but he said he didn't touch alcohol. And he couldn't stand loud places. We didn't pressure him.'

‘You never asked him about Sri Lanka? What it was like over there?'

‘I did once,' Hidden Shadow replied. ‘You know, about the Tamil Tigers and the civil war. He definitely wasn't keen to talk about it. I thought maybe he'd lost his family. Something horrific like that.'

‘OK.' Iona put her pen down and surveyed the group with what she hoped was a calm, controlled expression. She realized the wall behind them was glistening; condensation, from all the people squashed in. Her chest felt tight. ‘If you remember anything else – and I mean anything – here's my number.' She placed three of her freshly printed cards on the table. First I've handed out, she thought. Apart from the ones to mum and dad. ‘Call me anytime.'

As the leader lifted one off the table, Iona stole a glance at the exit sign. ‘Thanks for taking the trouble to see me. You did the right thing here.'

Cropped-hair sat back and crossed his arms. ‘You think it could be something? A bomb plot?'

Iona put her notebook away, now just wanting to get out. ‘Any report like this has to be followed up.'

Hidden Shadow made a hissing sound through his teeth. ‘That's not what he asked.'

She glanced at him. ‘I can't say at this stage. I'll need to contact the university for details about foreign students. But, initially, yes; it does give me cause for concern.'

The admission seemed to go down well, like they could be involved in something serious. Talking fodder for their next trip.

‘Obviously,' she added, ‘our arrangement to keep this between ourselves works two ways. Quid pro quo, as Doctor Lecter said to Clarice Starling.'

Cropped-hair's face lit up. ‘Like it,' he smiled. ‘Yeah. Of course.'

His eyes went to Hidden Shadow and, from the glance they shared, Iona wasn't sure if they'd be keeping their side of the bargain. She got to her feet and looked at Toby. ‘If anything else comes up on my side, more questions or the need for photo identification, do I go through you?'

He turned to Cropped-hair, who nodded.

‘Yup,' Toby replied.

‘OK. Thanks again.' She reached into her pocket, took out a tenner and put it on the table. ‘And have another drink on me.'

The three of them looked delighted as she burrowed her way across the packed bar and jogged thankfully up the steps. Back out in the open air, she placed a hand on the railings, breathing deeply as she looked up at the night sky. Seems like I've been down there for hours, she thought, a light breeze making her damp shirt feel suddenly cold.

As her heartbeat returned to normal, her mind turned to how she could access the footage from any cameras overlooking the library's entrance. Her mobile beeped and she realized there would have been no signal in the subterranean bar. Looking at the screen, she saw the message was from Jim. Hang on, she thought. Jim. He's just been through the exact process with the drug-dealing case. His parting comment rang in her head and another thought occurred: I'm not sure if I can face speaking to him. Not tonight, anyway.

She put her phone away and glanced at her watch. Eight forty-three. In about thirty-six hours, she realized, these streets will be crawling with delegates for the Labour Party conference.

T
he phone line clicked as Iona was placed on hold. She looked up from her desk. As usual, the office was very quiet. Many members of the Unit would be over at Gold Command, the operations centre set up especially for the Labour Party conference in the sports hall of the Police Training College at Sedgeley Park. Others would be at the Silver and Bronze posts located closer to the convention centre itself. That left a few civilian support workers and her.

Her eyes settled on the screensaver that someone in the IT department had loaded on to everyone's monitor. Operation Protector, the block lettering boldly announced. The digital numbers below it read, fourteen hours, forty-three minutes. It was a countdown to midnight: when the security operation went live.

She examined the empty desk opposite hers. Detective Inspector Dave Ellis. The person meant to be her work partner, showing her the ropes, making her feel part of the team. Presently laid up at home with a slipped disc.

On getting in that morning, she'd tried to summon the will to call Jim and ask how he'd got hold of all the CCTV images relating to the case he was wrapping up. I've helped in so many cases where evidence from council CCTV featured, she chastised herself, and not once did it occur to me where all the images were actually recorded.

After a minute's agonizing, she'd decided to prioritize contacting the University of Manchester to ask how she could obtain a list of all foreign nationals currently in the city on student visas.

The task, as the staff member in the admissions office had told her, was made considerably easier by the fact the present institution was the result of a merger, some seven years before, between The Victoria University of Manchester and the Manchester Institute of Science and Technology. The new establishment had close to forty thousand students, and not only were the seven thousand or so overseas ones on student visas listed by the admissions office, they were also categorized by nationality, sex and ethnic origin.

Iona had asked the staff member to bring up all those from Sri Lanka. As expected, Muttiah and Vasen were not among the nine names revealed. Examining the ethnic categories on the university's online form, Iona asked the person to separate off all males who'd ticked ‘Asian', ‘African' or ‘Any other black background' as their ethnic group and email the names over.

This had resulted in a list of just under two thousand, alphabetically listed, surnames. She scanned carefully through the lot. No Christian or surnames of Muttiah, as Iona expected. Worse, no Vasens either. In fact, none of the names beginning with V even came close to the name which Hidden Shadow thought he'd heard being used.

She'd tapped her pen against her lower teeth. It was no surprise the mystery person had lied about being Sri Lankan. But if he wasn't actually over on a student visa either, the search for him would make finding a needle in a haystack seem simple.

She'd sunk lower in her seat, suddenly sensing that the grim reality of most police work was about to apply to this case: a slow, methodical sift of information. And, with the conference about to start, it was something she didn't have time to do.

Studying the names again, she recalled that Hidden Shadow had mentioned something. What was it? She closed her eyes. It had been towards the end of the interview, when she was dying to get out of that bar. Something to do with the pair being in smart clothes outside the library. Like they were dressed for a graduation ceremony, that was it!

She called the person in the university's admissions office back. ‘Do you keep a list of recent graduates? Or, better, the foreign nationals who've completed the course they were granted a student visa to undertake?'

‘We do.'

‘Great. Can I have all male names then for last year, please? Same ethnic search parameters as before. Oh, and any chance the alphabetical order can be by the Christian name this time, not surname?'

‘I think I can do that.'

Ten minutes later, she had a new list, numbering one thousand three hundred and fourteen. She scanned for those that began with M. No Muttiah. She continued to those that began with V. There were eight.

Vasava.

Vasilios.

Vassen.

Vedanga.

Victor.

Vimal.

Viraj.

Vougay.

Her eyes went back to the third. Vassen. Surname of Bhujun, from Mauritius. Of course, the university staff member had explained, there were also foreign nationals studying at Salford University and Manchester Metropolitan University, not to mention the various other Further Education institutions dotted about the city.

But Iona had a good feeling about Vassen Bhujun and, judging from what the police officer in Mauritius had just reported, her hunch had saved countless valuable hours of searching.

At that moment there was another click as the police officer came back on the line. ‘Sorry for keeping you.'

‘That's OK. What time is it in Mauritius, by the way?' Iona asked, transferring the phone to her other hand and reaching for a notepad.

‘Twenty past two in the afternoon,' the woman replied, a mix of what seemed to be Caribbean and French in her accent. ‘Four hours ahead of you.'

‘Oh. Afternoon then. And you're an inspector?'

‘That's correct,' the voice said.

She glanced at Dave Ellis' empty chair. ‘We have the same rank over here.'