‘It’s a tough game,’ Tom said.
‘Yeah. You’re about to find that out the hard way. Give me something from the inside on this thing and I’ll go easy on you at the inquiry. I can make you look like a hero if I try hard enough.’
Tom pushed his seat back and stood up. He didn’t want to be in the same room as Fisher for a second longer, and he didn’t believe a word of what the man had just said.
‘I’ll call your superiors, tell them you were here under false pretences.’
Tom looked over his shoulder as he opened the door of the interview room. ‘Go ahead. I don’t think it’s going to make any difference to my future.’
Tom found a cafe near the newpaper’s offices and ordered a tea. He took out his notebook and pen and cell phone. He dialled Dan Morris’s number and the detective groaned when Tom told him who it was.
‘I need a favour,’ Tom said.
‘Well, you’re in no position to ask for one. I’m not going to let you drag me down with you. I’m hanging up now, Tom.’
‘Daniel Carney?’
‘What about him?’
Tom moved his tea away from his notebook and waited in silence.
‘I’m hanging up.’
Tom blew on the hot liquid and sipped it.
‘How do you know about him?’ Morris relented.
Tom smiled to himself. Fisher’s threat to tell his superiors about his unauthorised — illegal — investigation hadn’t fazed him at all. He’d meant what he’d said: nothing he did from here on in would make things worse. He had resigned himself to the fact that he would not survive the inquiry with his career intact. It was liberating, in a way, to be free of the rules and regulations that had for twenty-one years governed his life as a policeman. All that mattered now, all that might, possibly, keep him in the job was if he could find something the others had missed.
‘Tom? Answer me?’
‘Carney’s card was under Nick’s fridge — probably slipped off the door.’
‘Oh, right,’ Morris said.
Tom could almost hear the squeaky wheels turning in his colleague’s mind.
‘Well, you’re wasting your time there. I don’t think he exists,’ Morris said.
‘Really?’ Tom had already come to the same conclusion. It was hard to believe a freelancer who could command a budget of twenty-five thousand pounds from a newspaper would be unknown to other reporters in the industry. Also, the instant cards giving nothing but a cell number were a flimsy prop. Tom suspected the number was probably from a pre-paid SIM card.
‘The phone number was a pre-paid,’ Morris said. The confirmation brought no solace to Tom.
‘There are a load of Daniel Carneys in the phone book and we’ve just about got to the end of them, but nothing so far.’
‘Precious Tambo was raped, wasn’t she?’
‘Who told you that? I’m really going to hang up now, Tom. All the details of her death are being kept quiet.’
‘A reporter.’
Morris groaned again. ‘Bleeding hell. Goodbye, Tom.’
The phone went dead in his ear and Tom sipped some more of his tea.
Names. That was all he had. One didn’t exist, and the others, Nick Roberts, Precious Tambo and Robert Greeves — the ones who could give him the answers he needed — were all dead.
On the table was a copy of the Sun, which the last customer had spilled a latte on. Tom flipped through it as he thought about his next move. On page five he saw a headline that galvanised him into action.
SLAIN MINISTER’S FRIENDS TELL OF JANET’S GRIEF. GREEVES’S WIDOW PLANS TO SET UP CHARITY IN ROBERT’S HONOUR.
In his wallet was a laminated card with the phone numbers for Robert Greeves, his key staff members, and Greeves’s wife, Janet. There were numbers for the family homes in London, and in Bledlow Ridge, a village near West Wycombe in Buckinghamshire. The newspaper story said Janet Greeves was at the family’s ‘secluded, upmarket rural retreat’. Tom thought she would have the answering machine on for the land-line but would have her cell phone turned on.
‘Hello?’ said the female voice.
‘Mrs Greeves?’
‘Who’s calling, please.’
Tom thought she was right to be cautious. She would have been hounded by hundreds of reporters so far.
‘Detective Sergeant Tom Furey, ma’am. I was with Mr Greeves, when
…’
‘Oh.’
‘I’m very sorry for your loss, ma’am.’
‘I’ve read about you in the papers, Sergeant, though not by name. Is this an official call?’
She was frosty, dismissive. It was to be expected.
‘If you’ve seen the press reports, then you’ll know I’ve been suspended.’
‘Well, if you’re calling to apologise, it’s really not necessary. I’m sure you did everything you could have done.’
He’d expected more emotion. Perhaps anger, or if she was forgiving, empathy or pity for him at failing in the line of duty.
‘I’m sorry about the way things turned out, but I also have some questions for you which might help the investigation into your husband’s abduction and death.’
‘Yes, but you’re suspended, as you’ve just pointed out. I’ve told the investigating officers about Robert’s movements on the last few days before he left for Africa. There was nothing unusual. I understand if you’re trying to clear your name, but — ’
‘It’s not that. There are some sensitive matters that have come up, which I wanted to talk to you about in private. Perhaps it’s better if they’re not made part of the official record of investigation being undertaken by detectives Morris and Burnett.’
There was a pause on the end of the line.
‘I really should be going. I’m late for an appointment. Perhaps if you give me your number, I could — ’
‘It’s about the affair.’
Silence.
Tom waited. It always worked.
‘I meant what I said about being late. I’m going to be with my children this afternoon and this evening. I can see you at eleven, tomorrow, at the Bledlow Ridge house.’
Tom was wired. He felt truly alive for the first time since Bernard’s death. He’d pushed a button and Janet Greeves had responded. She knew about her husband’s infidelity — perhaps there had been more than one affair.
He hated having to wait until the next morning to see her.
Ideally, he would have played his trump card face to face. Now she’d have time to prepare herself for his questions, but he couldn’t do anything about that. He finished his tea, walked to the DLR station and made his way back to Highgate.
Once inside, in the warmth of his home, he went to the study at the top of the stairs and turned on his computer. He typed Robert Greeves and Africa in the internet search engine’s subject field. There were scores of hits, so he tried again, limiting it to news coverage and added Michael Fisher to the search words. This limited the hits to less than a page.
He clicked on Fisher’s last story for the World before Greeves’s ill-fated trip to meet with the South African defence minister. This was a critical piece about the ‘globe-trotting junior minister’s love affair with the dark continent and taxpayers’ money’. It showed a full-length photo of Greeves, manipulated so that he was wearing a pith helmet and Bombay bloomers, with a pair of oversize binoculars around his neck and a gin and tonic in one hand. The story listed the minister’s trips to Africa over the past three years.
As well as South Africa, the countries he had visited included Kenya, Tanzania, Namibia, Mozambique, Botswana and Malawi. The last, Tom noted, Greeves was also reported to have visited four times on holiday, as well as the two ‘official’ visits listed in the chronology.
With its crystal-clear waters and colourful tropical fish, fresh-water Lake Malawi has proved far more attractive than Bognor Regis for Greeves during the past three parliamentary recesses, Fisher had written.
Tom made a note of the country on his pad and spent twenty minutes looking for information about it on the internet. He found a map and saw that the landlocked country was east of Zambia and northwest of Mozambique. It seemed to be largely made up of the lake which Fisher had referred to in the story.