Cold Justice (Willis/Carter #4)(10)

‘Maybe . . . something in that press conference definitely wasn’t right. Something’s not being said between them. I want his phone checked and I want their flat bugged if Samuel isn’t found tonight.’

‘We could move them out to a hotel – tell them it’s to give them some privacy. Hotel rooms are easier to bug,’ suggested Willis.

‘No, I’d rather leave them where they are. How did the searches on sex offenders’ homes work out?’ Carter asked. ‘Anything promising?’

Willis stood, her chair grating as it pushed backwards on the wooden floor. She picked up the half-eaten doughnut she’d bought from the canteen much earlier that morning.

‘Nothing so far – three down, two to go.’

‘Don’t get that on my coat,’ Carter said as Willis came too close to him with the doughnut. Jeanie walked in just as they were about to leave. Willis smirked.

‘How are the Forbes-Wrights after the press conference?’ Carter asked as Jeanie sat down at her desk.

‘My hunch? There will be a few angry words being exchanged, I think. This is when the major cracks in their relationship start to appear.’

‘What’s the deal with them?’ asked Carter. ‘She’s much older.’

‘She seems to have put her career first,’ replied Jeanie. ‘She left it late to find a partner and then they met and married within six months. He’s difficult to fathom. I can see what he’d find to like in her – if he’s into older women, that is, but I’m sure she could have bagged a fifty-year-old divorcee to give her a child and some security. He must have hidden depths – he’s not my type. He seems so young, even younger than his twenty-nine years.’

‘He’s sensitive, arty,’ said Willis. ‘Lauren obviously likes mothering him. If it works, it works, I suppose.’

‘Until it stops working,’ Carter said. ‘Until he wakes up and decides it’s not what he wants and he’s not enough of a grown-up to say “I want out”.’

Jeanie looked deep in thought as Willis said, ‘We’re sending officers round to interview the staff at the Observatory this morning. We should know more about him then.’ Willis shoved the last of the doughnut into her mouth, screwed up the bag and lobbed it at the bin. ‘We have a call logged on Toby’s phone at two sixteen yesterday. That was from one of his co-workers, Gareth Turnbill. He phoned him before his walk with Samuel,’ Willis continued, looking at her notes. ‘He lives in Blackheath. He’s a lad of nineteen. We’ll talk to him first.’

‘What have the couple said to you about Jeremy Forbes-Wright?’ Carter asked Jeanie.

‘Very little. Lauren never met him. He didn’t attend their wedding. Toby said he hadn’t seen him in ages.’

‘Where was the funeral?’ Carter asked Willis.

‘Ladywell and Brockley Cemetery.’ Carter looked at it over her shoulder as she brought up a link on screen: Friends of Ladywell and Brockley Cemetery homepage.

‘I know it,’ he said. ‘I have a relative on my dad’s side buried there. It’s a beautiful old cemetery. What did they say went on after the funeral, Jeanie?’

‘They came back to the flat, they had a discussion about who was there, well, more just agreeing that they didn’t know anyone, and then they talked briefly about his father’s affairs. I think there was some tension over Toby having gone to look at his father’s flat without Lauren. They were considering leaving this morning to go to Cornwall. Jeremy Forbes-Wright had a house there but it’s let most of the time. That was one thing Lauren did say – that the man who was responsible for letting that house was at the funeral.’

‘We had to send a few officers to the cemetery to keep the press at arm’s length,’ said Willis. ‘But it’s useful for us to see who actually went inside. There were several news companies filming. Some say Jeremy Forbes-Wright had a chance of being Prime Minister one day,’ Willis added as she watched some footage of the funeral on her screen.

‘He was expected to run for one of the vacant seats in Kent, prime Tory country, but he was reported as having dropped out of the race at Christmas,’ said Jeanie. ‘There’s been speculation about it but no real reason given.’

Carter was watching the screen with Willis. He turned back to Jeanie. ‘What about Lauren, what’s in her past?’

‘She’s super-bright . . . very academic. Only child. Parents are professors. She has a great job; earns about eighty grand at the moment but she’s still working her way up the ladder.’

‘I think we’re right to count her out. That leaves Toby and his dad, which doesn’t seem a hell of a lot of good. The public will want to know how a kid can be snatched from his father’s buggy in broad daylight and then disappear.’

Jeanie nodded. ‘Okay, give me an hour to write up my notes and I’ll head back over to see them.’

‘We’ll join you there at their flat. We need to put some pressure on Toby now to start remembering things.’





Chapter 6


Willis stood in front of the French windows, looking out at the Thames. Pots of herbs battled against the odds on the small balcony. One was upturned, rolling around in its own dirt. There was a small dog turd getting turned over in the wind. Today the Thames was the colour of slate. She could see the river police – she knew they were still looking for Samuel’s body. It was twelve noon but already the day was getting dark. Storms were on the way.