Imposition (DI Gardener 5)

“When was the last entry from Carrie Fletcher that didn’t involve Jane Carter?”

Emma Longstaff dug out what she needed. “There was nothing from Friday night to Sunday morning. She was obviously devastated by the news, which she must have heard quite quickly. But then on Sunday there were three or four pictures and a beautiful verse as a kind of RIP. In fact, there were quite a few on there, nearly all of her friends. Something else which makes me think they’re all genuine.”

“More proof that her and Carrie were close,” said Reilly.

“Nothing after Sunday morning?” Gardener inquired.

“No, sir.”

Gardener grew more concerned. Where the hell was Carrie Fletcher? He returned to a point that Sarah Gates had mentioned.

“Sarah, you said Cathy Smithson suspected something might be wrong about six months ago.” Gardener turned to Emma Longstaff. “Can you remember finding anything about any such incident on Facebook – privately or otherwise?”

“No, but I’ve only spent the day surfing through her friends and the messages they leave on her wall. I’ll have to go through the private messages for that.”

“Can you do that, please, Emma? It might give us something to go on.”

The SIO was aware of the fact that Colin Sharp had still not made an appearance. As there were one or two more things to discuss he would see them out of the way before calling him on his mobile.

Gardener waited while Cragg added more notes to the boards, before addressing Mike Atherton.

“CHIS Handlers; Intel Cell?”

“Nothing concrete,” replied Atherton. “But there was a mention of Manny Walters. They reckon he’s mixed up in this somewhere. Word on the street says he’s had a big pay day.”

“Did they say why?”

“One of the guys I spoke to in Armley reckons Manny was spotted in a pub car park on Saturday night. The Black Bull in Rawston.”

Gardener groaned and Reilly rolled his eyes. They were involved in something serious quite some time back in Rawston involving perverts, paedophiles and all sorts. It was a pretty rough area.

“Did your snout know what was going down?”

“No. It was all done in darkness. But later that same evening, Manny was also flogging a shed load of CDs and DVDs, biggest names in the collection all representing Glam Rock.”

“Good work, Mike. Sounds to me like we’ve found our man.”

Maurice Cragg shook his head. “But Manny isn’t violent. It doesn’t have his stamp on it.”

“Maybe he panicked,” said Rawson.

“If he’d have panicked,” Cragg replied, “he’d have run, not fought.”

“Pressure of being caught can make you do funny things,” offered Reilly. “Under normal circumstances maybe he would have run. Let’s say this wasn’t normal. If he was in the bathroom when she came in, he’d be cornered. Only way past her was using force.”

“I might go along with that, Sean,” said Gardener, “but did he make it upstairs?”

“Maybe not, boss. I was just thinking outside the box.”

“You’d have to,” said Anderson. “It’s a small fucking box inside your head.”

Another roar of laughter ensued. Gardener loved the banter. He knew underneath all that his team had nothing but the greatest of respect for each other. “Did you pay Manny a visit, Mike?”

“Twice. Place was empty both times. I spoke to his neighbour, Mary Miller, but she didn’t know where he was.”

Gardener sighed. “Why is it that everyone connected to this case is disappearing?”

“Everyone we want to speak to anyway,” said Benson. “Really does make you wonder what’s going on.”