75
Daniels watched the lift ascending. A bell rang, announcing its arrival. The doors slid open and Gormley stepped out. He too had on a Kevlar vest. He was carrying a police baton in one hand and a warrant in the other, delivered by Robson a few minutes before. Naylor had attended court himself, making an emergency application for a warrant to search the premises of a prime suspect in a triple murder case, telling the bench that he was confident it would lead to the arrest and detention of the person or persons responsible. There were no arguments from the magistrates.
Gormley took the key to the penthouse from his pocket and dangled it in the air.
‘Courtesy of a red-faced concierge,’ he said.
‘Shame it took a court order to bring about his cooperation,’ Daniels replied. ‘You checked the car park?’
Gormley nodded. ‘No Audi A5s.’
Daniels knocked on the door but no one answered.
‘How’d you know what vehicle they’re driving?’ Gormley asked, handing her the key.
Ignoring the question, Daniels put the key into the lock, turned it clockwise and pushed open the door. The apartment was much like Fielding’s in size and shape: a high-quality furnished rental with some nice artistic touches, possibly a musician’s pad or, at the very least, someone heavily into music.
There were several framed posters on the walls. One in particular caught her eye. Joni Mitchell: Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter. Joni was at the mike singing, her inimitable pout clearly visible. An over-sized acoustic guitar hung round her neck from a shoulder strap. The singer was wearing faded blue jeans, a throwback from the eighties, possibly even as far back as the seventies, Daniels thought. Underneath her picture were the words: Give Joy To The World . . . With Music.
Gormley moved through the apartment into one of the bedrooms while Daniels remained in the living room. There weren’t many personal possessions belonging to Laidlaw in the room, just a man’s leather jacket slung over a sofa, a pair of very large shoes on the floor, an open bi-fold leather wallet discarded on a side table, no cash but several credit cards inside.
Daniels wandered into the kitchen, the only sound in the apartment coming from her shoes as she walked over the wooden floor. It was then that she saw him. The shock nearly took her breath away. He was a heavy-set man with jet-black, greasy, shoulder-length hair, hard eyes fixed on her, lips slightly apart. He was dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt that clung to a swollen gut.
‘Oh my God!’ a voice behind her said.
Daniels turned towards it.
Fiona Fielding had her right hand to her mouth. Her eyes were welded to the floor where the man’s body lay, a knife still in his back, a pool of settled blood all around him. Having heard the cry, Gormley came thundering through the apartment with his baton raised in the air, stopping dead in his tracks when he saw Daniels hugging a woman who had her back to him.
‘Can anyone join in?’ he said, his tongue firmly planted in his cheek.
Both women turned towards him. ‘Hank, this is Fiona—’
‘Fielding, I remember.’
‘Good, then get her out of here!’ As the women parted, Gormley’s eyes shifted to the body on the floor, to the knife in particular, a spring-assisted flick-knife if he was any judge, the type often used by the military.
‘He must’ve been to a Superintendent’s promotion do,’ he quipped.
Fielding laughed at his gallows humour but her laughter turned to tears as the shock of seeing a dead man kicked in. It may have been his way of coping with the macabre side of being a murder detective, but it was completely inappropriate in front of a civilian and Daniels wasn’t laughing. Repeating her instruction to lose Fielding, she waited for them to leave and then bent down to check for a pulse, even though it seemed pointless; an automatic response to make sure the man was actually dead.
He was.
She pulled out her phone and rang Robson. Giving him a quick update to pass on to their guv’nor, she told him to alert the outside team that Laidlaw was currently a natural redhead, medium-length hair, well made-up. At least, she was when last seen, a description she assumed could change at any minute.
‘She’s driving a steel grey, 09 Audi A5,’ she added. ‘I want a uniformed officer, a scientific aids team and a pathologist down here right away.’
She rang off.
Seconds later, she heard the front door go.
She swung round, half-expecting to see Laidlaw, steeling herself for a confrontation. As the footsteps drew nearer, her eyes glanced at the knife in the man’s back, the only weapon within reach.
‘She didn’t touch anything on the way out,’ Gormley said as he appeared in the doorway. Daniels blew out her cheeks. Gormley held both hands above his head as she yelled at him for not warning her on the way in.
‘How’s Fiona?’ she asked.
‘Pretty shaken up. You want to pop down and see her while I hold the fort?’
Daniels growled at him. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think you want to find Laidlaw, boss.’
‘Yeah, like it’s that simple!’ Daniels said. ‘We don’t know where to look.’
Gormley grinned. He knew something.
‘Fielding said to tell you she is wasted as an artist, whatever that means. She said she’s travelled the world and knows an airport hire car when she sees one. Looks like Laidlaw’s going to make a run for it.’