‘I wasn’t uncomfortable. I just thought we’d finished.’
When Anik returned to the station, the accompanying PC was carrying nine bagged and tagged pairs of shoes to compare to the footprints found at Rose Cottage. Five came from Mike’s flat, and a further four from Barry’s flat, which they’d also received permission to search.
Barry had not only been out, but his neighbours had confirmed that he hadn’t been seen for just over a week, approximately the same length of time as Mike.
Today had been hugely productive with regards to information about Mike and, although the DNA comparison between the bone marrow and the toothbrush would take between twelve and twenty-four hours to process, most of the officers on Ridley’s team now suspected that their murder victim from Rose Cottage was, in fact, Mike Withey. But Ridley knew that by answering the question of identity, a thousand more questions would need to be asked.
Why was Mike Withey in Rose Cottage? Did he know about, or was he involved in, the train robbery? Or did he stumble across the hidden money years later? Then the biggest of all the questions... who killed him? Ridley took Mike’s personnel file into his office and shut his door.
He pored over Mike’s file during this pause in the investigation, while they waited for DNA results. But he didn’t look at Mike’s case reports, as Jack and Laura had done. He looked at Craigh’s. Craigh had been Mike’s DI; therefore Ridley knew how his reports should have been written, so he was looking for anything out of the ordinary. Sure enough, around the time of the wrongful raid in search of weapons at The Grange, Craigh’s reports started to feel clumsy. They lacked detail or seemed incomplete and Mike’s name was often omitted altogether, making Ridley wonder if this was an attempt to distance him from the case. The information that led to the gun raid had come from Mike and was, after all, bogus. Maybe Craigh was protecting his own reputation by distancing himself from Mike? Mike’s personal vendetta against Dolly Rawlins certainly seemed to have influenced his actions and — in Ridley’s opinion — Craigh was covering his back.
The biggest alarm bell for Ridley was that Mike had retired from the police force eight months after the train robbery, spent some time in Spain and acquired enough money from the sale of a villa to buy a massive mansion in Weybridge. Or did he? Did Audrey’s villa sale make anywhere near enough for Mike to buy his £1.5 million house, or did he have money from some other source to make up the shortfall?
From his desk, Ridley could see the two crammed evidence boards in the squad room, and all the faces and names that had so far been connected to one or more crimes dating back as far as 1984.
Did Mike Withey know Norma Walker? And, regardless of Bill Thorn’s saintly opinion of her, was Norma the mounted rider who stopped the train on the night it was robbed? Did Mike help her? Did Barry? It certainly seemed far more likely that people with an inside knowledge of police procedure robbed the train, than a bunch of women setting up a children’s home, even if they were ex-cons. Once Ridley had got his head around everything, he stepped back out into the squad room with his instructions.
‘Anik, go back and speak to Susan Withey. I want a detailed timeline of every move her husband made, from the moment he left the force to the day she reported him missing. And I want to know how much they paid for their house and how much Audrey got from the sale of the villa. Jack, find out everything you can about Mike’s family — Audrey, Shirley, and there’s a younger brother, Greg. And find those missing women from The Grange.’
The pace of this investigation had now increased — from this moment forward, Ridley knew that every little detail would have to be nailed down before he went to the Super accusing a possibly dead ex-copper of committing the biggest train robbery in UK history.
Chapter 13
Jack and Maggie sat unnaturally close on their sofa, champagne glasses in hand, fixed grins on their faces, staring at the open laptop on the coffee table in front of them. It was eleven o’clock. Jack wore a nicely ironed shirt, Maggie wore a smart blouse, as though they were going out to a smart dinner party — and both wore pyjama bottoms. Their image in the top right-hand corner of the screen deliberately showed them from the waist up. Eventually the word ‘connecting’ disappeared from the centre of the screen.
‘Hello, darling!’
Penny’s overly excited voice crackled through the laptop speakers and Jack’s head sank in momentary despair as Penny launched into her obviously rehearsed chatter.
‘Mum! Mum, click the camera! Dad! We can hear you, but we can’t see you. Click on the little icon thing that looks like a video camera!’ Jack and Maggie could hear Penny and Charlie having a mumbled conversation, before their faces finally appeared on screen. ‘We can see you now!’
All four of them raised their glasses and said, ‘Cheers.’
Maggie and Charlie looked like typical Brits abroad — they had bright, shiny pink faces and looked half-cut. Charlie’s shirt was open down to his belly button, showing off his abundance of grey hairs that looked ten times greyer against his pink chest. Penny wore a halter-neck dress but had clearly been wearing a spaghetti strap vest-top throughout the day, so now her shoulders were an array of pink and white stripes. Jack couldn’t stop grinning as she went on and on about what they’d been up to.
‘Madeira has the most wonderful food, Jack, Maggie would love it. We’ve seen whales and dolphins, haven’t we, love? And it’s ever so green considering the heat. We’re in Funchal — have you been to Funchal? It’s Europe’s most picturesque and cleanest capital, according to the guide books. It’s famous for pirates. And do you know who was born here? Guess, Jack. Go on.’
‘No idea, Mum,’ Jack lied.
‘Cristiano Ronaldo!’
Jack and Maggie stifled a giggle and sipped their champagne as Penny continued with her various tales of beautiful gardens, long beach walks, the thrill of eating at eleven o’clock each night and drinking cocktails with fruit perched on the rim of the glass. And all the while, Charlie watched every move that she made, listened to every word and laughed at every single terrible attempt at a joke. He was exactly where he wanted to be and Jack knew it. He almost cried because his parents looked so incredibly happy. His relief was palpable.
At ten o’clock the next morning, Jack was being frisked by prison guards on his way into Pentonville to see Tony Fisher. Tony and all of the other inmates wore yellow tabards to distinguish them from the visitors — not that that was really required. The cons in this wing were the kind of men you’d cross the road to avoid just because of how they looked.
Tony walked towards Jack with a scowl on his face that said, You’d better be worth getting out of bed for, boy.
When he sat down, he didn’t bother pulling in his chair and getting comfortable, suggesting that he had no intention of staying. He had a natural sneer and, for 75 years old, he was still a frightening man. He had a split lip, a cut just beneath his left eye and a small wound to his neck, which Jack assumed was where his young assailant had tried to cut his throat. Tony was bigger than Jack, stockier and far more intimidating — and he knew it. Tony stared, motionless and silent. If Jack didn’t speak within the next couple of seconds, he had the feeling Tony would get bored and leave.
‘Thank you for agreeing to see me, Mr Fisher. I appreciate it.’
Jack knew that a man with such a big ego would prefer to be treated with respect, even if it was fake.
‘I don’t give a fuck,’ Tony growled.
Jack couldn’t help but smile, because he sounded exactly like the impression of a stereotypical East End gangster Jack had done for Laura.