In Dark Water (Detective Shona Oliver 1)

Shona pulled into a visitors’ parking space at Carlisle Police Cumbria Division HQ shortly after eight a.m. Dan signed her in, taking her swiftly through to the custody suite.

‘The duty solicitor is on standby, but Wazir’s refused legal counsel,’ Dan said. ‘He’s had something to eat and slept for a bit. I’ve arranged someone to sit with him. Custody sergeant is happy for you to interview him. Ready?’

Shona checked a text from Ravi. He had a friend, Shoku, an economics student who spoke Farsi and a bit of Arabic. Shona dialled the number provided. They would call in an accredited interpreter later. Was there a credible reason Wazir had this much baby milk in his car? If there was she’d be back at square one.

Shona explained to Shoku that everything she heard would be confidential. She could send a reasonable bill for her services. No charge, Shoku replied. Could Shona write her a reference for a translation company she was applying for? Shona smiled to herself. That was probably Ravi’s suggestion, the kind of mutually beneficial deal that endeared him to both parties. It was exactly the sort of creative thinking that made him such a good officer. No dent in Shona’s budget and a happy outcome for the student.

Imran Wazir sat in the interview room wrapped in a grey blanket. Even beneath the layers, Shona saw he was painfully thin. He shrank back when Shona and Dan entered, pressing himself against the wall, watching them with wide brown eyes. The vulnerable adult chaperone next to him, a pleasant-faced, middle-aged man in chinos and a pink shirt; the stark contrast in their relative lots in life wasn’t lost on Shona.

Shona sat down and smiled. Dan switched on the recorder. She introduced herself, holding out her small hand out until Wazir shook it. Shona handed her phone to Wazir. He listened with trepidation to Shoku’s voice, speaking quietly in response to her questions, then passed the phone back.

‘I’ve explained why he’s here,’ Shoku relayed to Shona. ‘I asked if he’s given his real name. He says he has and that he’s from Isfahan in Iran. He came here via Belgrade. He wants to know, will he go to prison here or be sent back to serve his sentence in Iran?’

‘Tell him we’re not the border police, we only want to ask some questions about the baby milk found in his car.’ Shona smiled reassuringly and, setting her phone to loudspeaker, placed it on the table between them. ‘So, is the milk for your family? How many babies are there? Seventeen tins is a lot of milk.’ She watched Wazir as Shoku relayed the question. He didn’t look at her, his eyes fixed on the phone.

‘He just says it’s for his family, that he bought them from a friend,’ Shoku translated.

‘What’s his friend’s name?’

‘He doesn’t remember.’

‘Okay, how much did you pay? Did this friend give him a receipt?’ Shona could see Wazir plucking at the edge of the blanket. ‘Imran?’

At the sound of his name, Wazir looked up at her. In a flash, Shona was reminded of the night the lifeboat had been called to Sark Bridge. The expression of fear and hopelessness on Sami Raseem’s face as he clung to the stone piers above the raging water. A man trapped. A man who saw no way out.

‘He says he doesn’t remember.’ Shoku translated the murmured reply.

There was a knock on the door of the interview room. Wazir’s eyes widened in alarm as a large, uniformed officer put his head in and asked to speak to Dan for a moment.

Shona touched Wazir lightly on the arm. ‘It’s okay.’ She smiled. ‘This is a good time to take a break. We’ll get you something to drink.’ Shona thanked Shoku. They’d call her back.

Outside in the corridor, Shona stretched, rolling her shoulders. A little further along Dan was talking to the constable, who shuffled through a series of photographs and pages of text. After a moment, Dan returned, his face triumphant. He held out a page for her to see.

‘I asked for any ANPR hits on the car Wazir was driving over the last few months. He’s been making regular trips up and down between Carlisle and Dumfries.’

Shona took the page from him scanning the familiar route she’d just travelled herself. ‘That’s good. It certainly puts him in the area on the day of the thefts.’ She could see he was bursting to tell her something. ‘What else?’

‘I asked them to check his route into Carlisle. Did he trip any speed cameras?’ Dan handed her a picture printout. ‘He did. Two weeks ago.’

Shona studied the man hunched over the wheel. Without doubt it was Wazir’s exhausted and fearful face caught in the camera’s flash.

‘Look there.’ Dan was leaning over her shoulder, his finger pointing not to the driver but at the thin man with the high hairline in the passenger seat. He too had been caught clearly by the speed camera. Shona held the photograph closer, then looked up at Dan, her dark eyes wide. ‘Is that our motorway victim? Is that Sami Raseem in the passenger seat a week before he was killed?’

‘Worth asking our friend in there, isn’t it?’

‘Let’s do that,’ said Shona firmly. ‘Let’s see what’s really worrying him, the faulty brake lights or that the police have just picked him up for murder.’

‘Do you think Wazir pushed Sami from the van?’

‘He hasn’t accounted for the baby milk in his car. If we can prove it’s been stolen, this is large-scale thievery. He’s in the frame for Sami too, until we know otherwise. But Dan, one thing.’ She drew him further down the corridor away from the custody desk. ‘I want him back in Dumfries before this goes any further.’

‘I’m not senior enough to authorise it.’ He shook his head. ‘Shit. It will have to be Lambert, my DCI.’

‘Will he give me Wazir, do you think?’

‘Not a chance,’ said Dan, glumly. ‘He’ll either want the arrest himself or to hand Wazir straight over to immigration to avoid the paperwork.’

Shona pressed her finger to her lips, thinking for a moment. ‘Okay. So, here’s what we do.’ She lowered her voice, glancing along the corridor to the custody desk. ‘Right now, you’re holding Wazir for a traffic offence. Get on the phone to the CPS, have him charged and bailed. I’ll tell the custody sergeant he’s wanted for questioning over a number of thefts in Dumfries. Soon as he’s bailed, I’ll re-arrest him. We won’t wait for an escort team. I’ve been liaising with you on another cross-border case, you have business in Dumfries, and you’re prepared to assist me in escorting the prisoner in the name of efficiency and good relations. Get this right and we’ll be out of here before Lambert’s blown the froth off his morning cappuccino. What do you say?’ Shona could tell that the prospect of getting one over on his boss was almost more appealing than cracking the baby milk case and potentially the motorway death as well. Dan grinned. ‘I’d say he was more of a tea with milk and two sugars man, but yes, you’re on.’