Deadly Ritual by D S Butler

Author:D S Butler [Butler, D S]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-03-29T21:00:00+00:00

24

WHEN MACKINNON GOT TO Wood Street the following morning, he was shattered. The commute from Oxford to London in the early hours had been quiet, but he had found it very difficult to get out of bed that morning.

He sat in the briefing room next to Charlotte and waited for Tyler to make a start.

Mackinnon was already on his third coffee of the day. He raised his cup and breathed in the aroma before taking a sip, but so far the caffeine wasn’t having its usual effect.

He was going to need a pot of coffee at this rate.

Tyler started off the briefing, and everyone gave updates in turn.

They had no new leads from Francis Eze’s phone or computer.

Rosialie Estes, the family liaison officer, had spoken to Francis’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Eze, and asked them whether they had heard Francis mention a Mr. X.

Francis’s father said he’d never heard the name, but Francis’s mother said she’d heard Francis mention it once or twice. She didn’t think he was a real person. When she heard Francis mention Mr. X, she had assumed he was referring to a character in a film or a TV show.

Rosialie had also shown Mr. and Mrs. Eze a photograph of Adam Jonah, to see if they recognised him. Unfortunately, they didn’t.

Tyler wasn’t happy.

“There has to be a link between them,” he said. “If we find that, we’ll be able to make some progress.”

The rest of the team had been methodically raking through financial and phone records, looking for any links between the two victims, but so far, they’d found nothing.

But Evie Charlesworth had uncovered something interesting.

When Tyler nodded for her to speak up, she told the team she’d been trawling through Joy Barter’s financial records and had discovered the woman had made a cash withdrawal for five thousand pounds last week.

Now that was interesting. Mackinnon took a sip of his coffee and watched Tyler’s reaction.

“We need to find out what that money was for,” Tyler said. He looked to Mackinnon and Charlotte. “Go back and pay Joy Barter a visit this morning. Find out what that money was for.”

Mackinnon nodded. A withdrawal like that was unusual. People didn’t tend to deal much in cash these days, especially not someone married to a mega-rich plastic surgeon who lived in Kensington. Mackinnon was willing to bet she had a few platinum cards stashed in her purse.

So what would a woman like Joy Barter have needed that five thousand pounds for?

Tyler moved on, assigning new tasks, and DCI Brookbank joined them for the last ten minutes of the meeting.

He said nothing but kept his deep-set, hooded eyes on them all.

After Brookbank arrived in the briefing room, Tyler continually tugged at his shirt, as if his tie was too tight around his neck. Mackinnon felt for him. This was a tough case, and Tyler had never been an officer who enjoyed responsibility. Over the past few months, more and more tasks had been piled onto Tyler’s shoulders. Mackinnon didn’t envy him his detective inspector’s role.

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