Dark Water (Detective Erika Foster 3)

‘You saw stubble?’ asked Erika.

‘When I hit him over the head, he went down and I saw he had a stubbly face,’ said Lenka. When the e-fit artist had gone, they opened a bottle of wine and sat in the corner of the room.

‘I should wake them up soon, or they won’t sleep,’ said Lenka. Marek is due to be arriving very soon.

‘What are you going to say to him?’ asked Erika.

‘I don’t know. My only option is to go back. I don’t speak the language. I’m in the way here.’

‘You are not in the way, I promise,’ said Erika. Marek arrived an hour later, he’d got a cab from the airport.

He was on his best behaviour, and greeted Erika warmly. He even had some food for her, a jar of his mother’s jam.

‘Thank you,’ said Erika. The kids woke up and were so excited to see him, and when he cuddled them and picked baby Eva up, Erika excused herself and went to find the room she was booked into.

She was dozing off just before eleven, with her laptop on her knee, when her phone rang.

‘Hi Erika, it’s Lee Graham from Cybercrime.’

Erika rubbed her eyes and sat up. ‘Hi Lee, I thought you were based over in Brighton now?’

‘No, back in London. I get around.’

‘I bet you do.’

Erika had worked with Lee on several cases over the past few years, and she enjoyed flirting with him. Probably because she thought it wouldn’t ever go anywhere.

‘I saw the request had gone out for phone and email records.’

‘I take it you managed to find something?’ she asked.

‘Yes, I’ve got Amanda Baker’s Internet usage records from her provider. Nothing dodgy, but she’s been accessing HOLMES several times a day over the last week.’

‘HOLMES? That can’t be right, she wouldn’t have access. She left the force years ago.’

‘She’s been accessing HOLMES through the login and password registered to a DI Simon Crawford…’

‘Shit.’

‘You know this officer?’

‘Yes.’

‘Her phone records also show that she’s been making and receiving calls to DI Crawford over the past three weeks too.’

‘He was assigned three weeks ago to my case,’ said Erika.

‘Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. It looks like she’s been poking her nose in. I’ve got a full list of her Internet history over the past month. It really picks up over the past few days. I’m also sending through the phone records.’

‘Thanks,’ said Erika. When she came off the phone she only had to wait a few minutes before the email came through, and then she started to read with interest.

56

When Erika arrived at the station the next morning, she was the first in the incident room. She watched as everyone arrived and just before eight she emerged from her office and called everyone to attention, and explained the findings from Amanda Baker’s phone records.

‘So this brings me on to the question, where is DI Crawford?’ finished Erika. She looked around the room at her officers.

‘Boss, Crawford didn’t come into work yesterday,’ said John.

‘Did no one think to tell me?’

‘You came in after lunch, after all the chaos, and then DCI Baker’s body was discovered…’

‘Ok. I want you to call him, I also want you to put in a request for his phone and his Internet records. I also want access his access to HOLMES suspended. I’ve put Amanda Baker’s internet records up on the system and the list of what she’s accessed over the past few days. I want you to divide it up and go through it, even if it looks innocent I want to see everything that she saw.’ Peterson I want you to be in charge of this, okay?’

Peterson nodded. John looked up at Erika from his phone,

‘Boss, I’ve just tried DI Crawford’s house and his mobile, he’s not answering either of them.’

‘Okay, Moss you come with me, let’s make a house call.’

* * *

It was raining yet again when Erika and Moss drove from Bromley to where Crawford lived between Beckenham and Sydenham.

‘I have a bad feeling about this,’ said Moss, when they arrived outside his flat.

‘Is this it?’ asked Erika peering up out of the front window. They were on Beckenham Hill Road, which was a busy main road. It was crammed with a long row of pound shops, newsagents, and betting shops, a few crummy launderettes, and an Iceland supermarket. It was also on several major bus routes.

‘I can’t park outside, there’s a couple of buses behind me.’ She drove a little further up and pulled into a Mc Donald’s car park. They hurried out and waited for a couple of minutes to cross the busy road. Crawford lived in a flat above a payday loans shop. It was a white front door that opened directly onto the street. They found his flat number in the long row of doorbells and rang, but there was no answer. A man came out of the door, and Erika and Moss slipped in after him.

A staircase with a grubby carpet wound its way up four flights. Crawford was on the top floor. When they reached the third floor, a door was open, and they could hear the sound of a Chinese lady shouting. A grey haired man came to the door, followed by the woman who was small and ferocious.

‘You plumber, but you not fix this leak?’

‘I told you, it’s coming from the flat above, and the person isn’t in.’ He said to her wearily.

‘Hi, I’m DCI Foster and this is DI Moss,’ said Erika as they flashed their badges. ‘There’s no one answering upstairs?’

‘Thas’ what he just said,’ snapped the woman. ‘There’s leak in my kitchen, big leak. It spread since last night all across the ceiling…’

Erika looked at Moss and then made for the stairs.

It took just two attempts for Erika to kick down the door. Crawford lived in a studio apartment. The bed was unmade under a window looking down onto the main road, and there were flies buzzing around above dirty pots and pans in the kitchen in the corner. On the wall were a picture collage of Crawford with two kids, a boy and a girl who were in their early teens. The pictures had been taken over the years, starting with a photo of what looked like the main gates at Disneyland Paris.