Imposture (DI Gardener 6)

“Or wants a bigger share than any of the others,” said Rawson.

“Or one of them has been siphoning a bit off without the others knowing,” offered Benson.

“And now they’ve found out,” said Gardener.

“Or it could be someone else,” added Gates.

“We’ve all been talking about the possibility of it being one of the two men,” said Gardener. “There are women involved.”

“Ah, yes,” said Anderson, “we can’t rule out Zoe Harrison.”

“I wasn’t thinking specifically about her,” replied Gardener, “James Henshaw was married. His wife may well have had enough of his double life.”

“What possible reason?” asked Longstaff. “She’s still got the house, and presumably a fair amount of money. Maybe that’s all she needs.”

“Perhaps she’s not actually bothered about her husband,” said Gates, “especially after what he’s done.”

Gardener nodded. “It could be any number of reasons but at the moment we just don’t know enough. We still have a lot of blanks to fill in. Returning to the DPA team, have they all been out of the country and now they’re back, or have they been here all along? Is it possible that someone else put all the pieces together a lot earlier than we have and held them hostage somewhere, and now he or she is releasing them one by one?”

Gardener’s questions were halted by a knock on the door. Desk sergeant Dave Williams dropped in holding a piece of A4 paper. “This just came in, sir. A man called Jonathan Drake called in to register a complaint. He was attacked on Butts Court, shortly before ten thirty this morning by a man who was driving a green 4x4. He doesn’t know what make, nor did he catch the registration, but it’s a bit too much of a coincidence.”

Rawson stood up. “I’m on it.”

Chapter Twenty-eight

Anthony was laid on the bed in the guest house, totally bollocksed. He’d never had such a trying day in his life.

After Rosie had cut the connection, the first thing Anthony did was remove the SIM card from the phone and put it in his pocket. He then threw the phone in a bin. Only later, when he was on the bus going into the centre of Leeds did he realise how stupid it was to have done that.

Once in Leeds he bought another pay-as-you-go phone with about twenty pounds of credit. Returning to Beckett Park he discovered his other phone was not where he’d left it. No surprise there, then. Some skank would have it somewhere – not that it would do him much good, but it might help Anthony, especially if the police had a method by which to trace it.

He’d returned to the guest house about half an hour previously, exhausted but with no appetite. His brain however, had been on overdrive. A complete jumble of thoughts about who was doing what: where the hell where they all, and what would happen now the police were involved? How much did they know? Sleep was completely out of the question. That would almost certainly l

ead to nightmares about him being chased by clowns – it always did.

Anthony sat up and rubbed his eyes. He jumped out of bed and crossed the room, switched on the travel kettle and made tea for himself. His stomach growled. He checked the biscuits. The few that were left would have to do.

With the tea made, Anthony sat down on the end of the bed, staring out of the darkened window. According to Rosie, everyone was missing and the police knew everything. So what to do and where to go from here would take some serious thinking.

Chapter Twenty-nine

“When did Jonathan Drake make the call?” asked Gardener.

“Just now,” replied Williams. “I took it myself.”

“Is he badly hurt?”

“Don’t think so, sounds like it’s just his pride.”

“And you said we’d send someone round?”

“As soon as we could.”

“Where does he live?”

“The flats near the university, about ten minutes away.”

“Okay,” said Gardener, eager to gain vital evidence but preferring instead to finish the incident room meeting.