Twelve
Mac
Bad news came thick and fast.
First, Ramirez’s solicitor arrived with a disk that he said had been delivered to him right outside the station. A hooded man had approached him as he turned into the car park, slapped the disk against his windscreen, and scarpered. Ramirez hadn’t explained, so three cops and one solicitor watched the film it contained without knowing what was going to be shown. And once it became apparent, someone quickly hit fast forward to spin through the feature as quickly as possible while the others studied the carpet or their fingernails.
So, Ramirez hadn’t phoned his mum, as they’d expected. He’d called one of his boys to bring the video along.
The next piece of bad news: Ramirez’s mum had been informed of developments by one of her son’s friends, and she’d thundered down to the station to raise hell. She was taken to Ramirez’s cell and given five observed minutes, but only after Ramirez promised to placate her and send her on her way, and under no circumstances to discuss the case with her. Clearly someone forgot that this guy was a criminal.
After her five minutes, she got time with the solicitor as she headed for the exit. What was said became clear not long afterwards.
The main players grouped in the interview room. Lawyer and client conferred in whispers, like lovers. Ramirez was smug when the lawyer said his client wasn’t going to answer questions but would make one statement. Ramirez rolled his shoulders and took a breath, like a guy getting ready for a long and eloquent speech.
‘I lost that dog tag. Like years ago. I ain’t seen it since. If you found that on Grafton’s body, someone’s setting me up. You got nothing on me.’
He went on to explain that his mother had admitted she took a whole bunch of her son’s stuff and got rid of it. The dog tag, she remembered, had gone into a box that had been stored in the attic. Over the years, all sorts of people had been in that attic: builders, family, friends, even the police. And they’d moved house, so the removal guys also had an opportunity to steal.
And that was that. The interview was paused as the detectives went out for a chat.
Mac met them in the hallway. Gondal was angry: he accused the solicitor of coaching the mother and son in how to discredit a major slice of evidence. Cooper, though, liked Mrs Ramirez’s input: it backed up his idea that someone out to frame Ramirez could have accessed the dog tag. The two detectives started to argue, but Mac shut them down.
‘Let’s forget the dog tag. The CPS wasn’t interested. It’s documented that Ramirez’s silly GodZillas gang is defunct. The tag will still make its way into court as padding, but we can’t rely on it. So, let’s focus on other things. Next step?’
Gondal said they should get the video analysed, just in case there was digital witchcraft involved: anyone planning a triple murder, especially of a man like Grafton, wouldn’t just hope for the best. They’d erect a force field.
Cooper disagreed, instead wanting to pursue Ramirez’s own theory: the set-up. Guys like Ramirez collected many enemies – ‘so let’s start looking at who might prosper with him locked in a cell.’
They looked at Mac to see which side of the fence he’d take.
‘Send the video for analysis,’ he said. ‘You never know. Ask him to clarify how to spell his surname. But wake him at four in the morning to do it, just to give him a headache. I’m going home. Call me if anything important pops up.’
Cooper asked: ‘You want to apply to hold him for longer?’
They had Ramirez for twenty-four hours before they had to charge or release him, but higher authority could extend that up to ninety-six. Or fourteen days if they could angle towards a terrorism offence, which Gondal made a joke about doing. But Mac told them to hold off until tomorrow, when they knew more, if anything.
That wasn’t the end of the bad news.
Before heading home, Mac dropped by the incident room, just to see if the worker ants on the phones and computers had learned anything that would make him groan. Brand new murder case, so the room was bustling with activity, most of the team bleary-eyed because they’d been up all last night on another case and had been woken by the call to arms. On-call detectives knew they could be summoned to a moonlit murder – but they hoped for a daylit discovery. In he walked, and there on the incident board was a printout from a car sales website featuring a dark blue 1999 Volvo V70 estate for £1,200. What the hell?
‘Where’s this from?’ he shouted at the room, his finger stabbing the picture.
A young DC looked up from a file she was studying at her desk, and raised her hand like a kid about to ask for the toilet. In fact, everyone was looking in their direction. A rare outburst from a usually introspective team leader. ‘I printed it off. I found it. Someone called it in.’
A helpful member of the public, she explained. A man had seen all the police activity around Tile Kiln Lane and had remembered a suspicious car because it had been driving close to the scene with three men in dark clothing inside. He’d noted the registration and had called in with it. She had interrogated the PNC, the Police National Computer, and discovered that the owner had reported the vehicle stolen four days ago.
Now that she’d explained, she was smiling, perhaps thinking she’d get a compliment – because this was a big lead, right?
‘Don’t just pin stuff on the board without telling a superior,’ Mac roared at her. ‘What if I didn’t see this for a week?’
She didn’t know what to say, but managed: ‘I’m sorry. It just came in. Five minutes ago—’
‘And what if I’d already had information about this car from another source, but the report said a BMW? I’d be out there looking for a BMW, wouldn’t I? While all along you knew it was a Volvo. How much time would that have wasted?’
‘I’m sorry I didn’t call. You and DS Gondal were busy downstairs. I was going to say when you came back.’ Those watching tried to pretend they were busy minding their own business.
‘From now on, all of you, anything important that comes in comes straight to me. Within one minute. Understand?’
A chorus of acknowledgement.
Mac stormed out. Which meant he didn’t see the DC, Downey, take a stroll to the kettle. Downey didn’t want a drink, though: he wanted to see the details of the car pinned on the board. Back at his seat with a coffee he wasn’t going to touch, Downey took out his phone and sent a text to someone very interested in how this investigation was progressing.