It took effort on Kincaid’s part to extricate himself quickly from the meeting with Lindsay Quinn, and without showing anything other than mild interest in what Quinn had told him. He thanked Quinn for the tea, shook his hand, and left the man looking mildly puzzled.
When he came out of the bar into the upper concourse, someone was pounding on the nearer of the two pianos in the lower concourse. Rachmaninoff, he thought, one of the piano concertos, well played. It was the music his mother had listened to when cleaning house, or when working out a knotty problem, but at that moment it made Kincaid feel like his head would explode. He headed quickly for the nearest exit, but as soon as he came out into Euston Road, his mobile rang.
It was Doug. “You won’t believe what I dug up,” Doug said when Kincaid answered. “Your bloke in Cheshire who topped himself? Retired Chief Inspector Fletcher?”
“What about him?” Kincaid asked, ducking his head and covering his other ear to shut out the traffic noise.
“He worked for Deputy Assistant Commissioner Trent. SO15.”
Kincaid felt like he’d been kicked in the gut a second time. “Shit.” He took a breath, trying to patch things together. “We need to talk. Not on the phone. Where are you?”
“Home,” said Doug. “Skived off work, didn’t I? Melody, too. She’s at the paper. We’ll probably both lose our jobs.”
“I only hope that’s the worst of it,” Kincaid muttered, thinking furiously. He didn’t dare meet them at King’s Cross, or anywhere near Holborn. “Look. Meet me where we met the other day, okay?” Maybe he was being ridiculously paranoid, but he didn’t care. “And ask Melody if she can check whether our DAC has roundabout financial interests in King’s Cross Development or its subsidiaries. Then meet her in Kensington and come together. Take a taxi.”
Doug laughed. “You’re taking the piss.”
“No, I’m bloody well not,” Kincaid snapped. “Just do it.”
He walked. It would take Doug and Melody some time to get to Hatton Garden, and he needed time to think. Taking Gray’s Inn Road south, he passed Wren Street and Roger Street and the Duke, the pub where Denis had felt safe meeting him on Saturday night. He hoped he was not as naive as Denis had been, in thinking he wouldn’t be traced to the Scotch Malt Whisky Society.
It wasn’t until he reached Greville Street that he remembered the whisky society didn’t open until twelve. Feeling a prize idiot, he settled in the pub downstairs, texting Doug accordingly and nursing a coffee. The pub had begun to fill for lunch and a sudden shower had drenched the streets, then vanished as quickly as it had appeared. By the time Doug and Melody spilled out of a taxi in Greville Street, it was straight up noon.
He met them outside and together they went upstairs to the society rooms above the pub. Kincaid ordered them all sandwiches and more coffee, then told them what he’d learned from Lindsay Quinn. Taking the Polaroid from his pocket, he passed it to them.
“Bloody sodding hell,” Doug said succinctly, staring at it.
“That’s her, without a doubt,” agreed Melody, “but who’s the other woman, the pretty brunette?”
“Not germane at the moment,” Doug told her. “You do realize Evelyn Trent’s Nick Callery’s boss, too? I found his home address, by the way. It is in the Gasholders complex. So, did Callery set up the meeting with Stanton, or did Stanton arrange it on Callery’s patch, thinking he could get the upper hand?”
“If he did, he certainly failed.” Kincaid had a thought. “Although, when Nick Callery showed up for no apparent reason at Holborn on Monday, he had a cut on his right hand. He said it was a kitchen-knife accident.”
“Maybe Stanton attacked him,” Doug said, “and it went pear shaped.”
“I’d call ‘dead in the canal’ pear shaped, all right.” Kincaid flashed a smile at the barmaid as she delivered their coffee. When she’d moved out of hearing distance, he continued. “Now, I’m wondering if Callery turned up at Holborn because he knew how close Tom Faith is to Denis, and he was fishing for information.”
“Well, it gets worse,” said Doug, and glanced at Melody.
“I didn’t have time to do much.” She shrugged apologetically. “There’s nothing as obvious as her name listed as a shareholder in KCD. But when I followed the links into some of the subsidiary corporations, I found an Evelyn Jaynes-Trent. I don’t think it would be a stretch to think they were one and the same.”
The three looked at each other in silence, their coffee cooling. Then, Kincaid summed it up. “So, is it reasonable to assume that she’s been using her position to protect her financial interests?”
“Rogue ops?” said Doug, but it wasn’t really a question. “Okay. I can run with that. Murdering people who are inconvenient? Sure. But what are we going to do about it? I don’t want to end up like Ryan. Or like Stanton, evil bastard that he was. Or like your sad bloke in Cheshire. Who would we take this to that would believe us? And that we could be certain wasn’t on her payroll? It seems not even Denis Childs had the answer to that.” He sat back while the barmaid set down their sandwiches, then, when she’d gone, leaned forward again, his eyes earnest behind his glasses. “Putting Ryan into Matthew Quinn’s protest group might have passed as legit. But everything since is completely bonkers. And who’s going to question her, for God’s sake? She’s counterterrorism!”
“I know who,” said Melody.
She might have dropped a bomb in the center of the table. Kincaid and Doug swiveled to stare at her, Doug already with a mouthful of roast beef, fear not having dampened his appetite.
“What are you talking about?” Doug mumbled around his sandwich, frowning.
But Kincaid suddenly understood. “Your father. He knew about Denis being attacked before anyone else did. And his hints about Denis’s past —maybe he knew about the undercover ops.”
“My dad’s never liked the idea of the police putting spies among ordinary citizens who aren’t committing a crime. It was one of the reasons he didn’t want me joining the police.”
Kincaid knew Melody had never wanted to trade on her father’s power and influence—or to be seen by her colleagues as an untrustworthy source of leaks.
He also hoped that he’d so far managed to keep Melody and Doug off Trent and Callery’s radar. If Melody took what they knew to her father, and Ivan used it, it wouldn’t take long for Trent to work out Ivan Talbot’s “undisclosed source.” “Melody, you’d be putting yourself right in the line of fire,” Kincaid said.
“Every second we wait puts us all at risk,” she answered. “You, me, Doug, Gemma. Your kids. You can’t think she won’t make those connections.”
Kincaid knew she was right. Doug did, too, as he gave her a reluctant nod.
“What about putting your father in danger?” Kincaid asked.
“He’s broken bigger cases than this. And the paper has the resources to do a lot of digging that we can’t do. I barely skimmed the surface.”
“You’re sure?” Kincaid asked.
Melody pushed aside her untouched plate. “Yes. And I’ll go now.” An unexpected smile lit her face. She added, “Before I lose my nerve.”