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“Could you honestly say you’d arrest the guy if you were Griffin? Walk away? If you had the power in your very sizeable hands? You know it, Cara. He could easily kill, without breaking a sweat.”
Cara goes to defend her brother, but she knows Noah’s right. Griffin has a temper, and biceps to match. It wouldn’t take much—a few well-aimed punches to the guy’s face, and it would be game over. Griffin’s life, his career, would be finished.
“I won’t let that happen,” she says at last.
Deakin seems to take her word for it. Or, even if he doesn’t believe her, he has the good grace to let it go. He looks at the last bit of cookie in his hand. “I think these are stale, Cara.” He looks at her with a small smile. “Is this your plan? To do me in with outdated baked goods?”
Her phone rings, interrupting their conversation, and she sees Marsh’s number. She answers it as Deakin shrugs and eats the last piece.
“Where are you, Elliott?”
“On our way back to the station, boss.”
“Come and see me when you get back. Straight away.”
He hangs up without any pleasantries. Cara has a sinking feeling.
“Marsh wants to see me.”
“Can’t be good,” Deakin comments.
“No,” she replies. “Not at all.”
* * *
Her hunch was confirmed as soon as Cara sees the detective chief superintendent’s face.
“Sit down,” he instructs. “Where are we?”
Cara doesn’t need to ask what he’s referring to. She gives a rundown on every lead they have followed up, every piece of evidence. It doesn’t take long.
“So you have nothing, basically, except a code nobody can break, shoes marks from one of the most common brands of sneakers, a case file from 1996 that you can’t find, a bit of greenery from a bog, and a queue of bodies stacking up in the mortuary?”
“We’re tracking down every single piece of CCTV, testing swabs, taking fingerprints, samples. But nothing comes up. He’s smart. He must be using condoms for the rapes. He knows where the cameras are, he knows how to avoid leaving anything forensics can work with.”
“And don’t I know it,” Marsh mutters. “Have you seen my budget?” He doesn’t wait for Cara to answer. “I’m getting pressure, DCI Elliott. Questions are being asked from above. About you. About the competency of my senior investigating officer to lead this case.”
Cara feels her stomach drop.
“We need results. And we need them soon, before any more bodies turn up. They’re talking about mentioning it at PM’s question time, do you know that, Elliott? They’re going to ask the fucking prime minister why the biggest case in UK history isn’t being handled by the Met.”
“Put anyone else as SIO, sir, and I assure you, they’ll have the same results.”
“That may be true, but we need to be seen to be doing everything we possibly can.” He pauses. “You have this memorial tomorrow, right?” he asks.
Cara nods.
“You have twenty-four hours after that. Then we’re handing it over.”
* * *
Cara walks out of his office and goes quickly down the stairs, pushing open the door to the toilets. She goes into one of the cubicles, puts the seat down and sits on it, putting her head between her knees, her hands on her head.
She doesn’t blame Marsh. She feels how badly the investigation is going. She knows how little they have to go on.
The memorial tomorrow is their one shot in the dark. Their Hail Mary that the guy’s ego won’t be able to resist and he’ll show up. But then what? How will they know?
Half of her feels like she doesn’t care anymore. She’s barely eaten a hot meal in days, she hasn’t had more than eight hours’ sleep across the whole week combined. She’s at home so rarely that her husband is sleeping with the nanny. It’s not healthy.
