Catching the Ice Queen Read online

  Lara closed her eyes and hung her head down, her hair sweeping the side of Robin’s face. ‘Didn’t like you? I liked you so much I kept trying to run away, but you always drew me back.’ She looked up and Robin was transfixed by her gaze.

  ‘Why didn’t you say anything?’

  They were very close now, Robin feeling Lara’s blue eyes burning into her own.

  ‘Say what?’

  ‘Say: I like you.’

  Lara leaned down and smiled a slow, sad smile. Quietly, hardly audible amongst the rushing of the wind, she said: ‘Robin Sullivan, I like you.’

  ‘I like you too, Lara Black, the most beautiful woman in the world.’

  Slowly, slowly Lara leaned forward and kissed Robin softly. For a heartbeat they broke apart, Lara’s face anxious, but then Robin gripped her waist and drew her back for more. For a split second she thought the other woman was going to pull back, but then she seemed to change her mind and instead tangled her hands in Robin’s hair the better to deepen the kiss. Robin felt the world dissolve in her clamouring heart and in the electricity tingling in her limbs, her whole body screaming for more and more until Lara broke away, eyes still dark with desire. Robin gasped, the sound of the sea and the sensation of the cool wind on her cheeks rushing back into the void that the kiss had created. She blinked, and realised she could hear a phone ringing. Lara reached into her car and fumbled with her bag, pulling out her iPhone.

  ‘Christ, sorry, this is the emergency number.’ She took a breath and closed her eyes for a second, then answered in a facsimile of her normal voice. ‘ACC Lara Black speaking.’

  She listened intently to whatever was being said on the other end of the line. Robin suddenly felt self-conscious, fearful that the call had been a welcome excuse for Lara to step out from her embrace. As if seeing these worries playing out on her face, the woman shifted the phone to her other ear and stretched out a hand to draw Robin to her side. This feels right, thought Robin as the strong arm folded around her back, and her own hands found their places around Lara’s slender waist. Unable to stop herself, she dropped a tender kiss on the side of the woman’s wide mouth, and felt the quirk of a half-smile against her cheek. Just the scent of her was dizzying: a mixture of that heady perfume, salt, ozone, and a whisper of musk that made Robin’s mouth dry. It’s too late to go back now, she thought, shocked at how overwhelmed she was feeling, I’m lost.

  She hadn’t been paying any attention to the conversation that had been going on and now blinked as the woman said goodbye and hung up. Lara’s hands turned Robin in her arms until they were face to face, holding each other tightly. For the second time Lara dipped her head and their kiss was long and sweet. Finally she broke away and said:

  ‘I have to go. I don’t want to go, but I have to.’

  ‘Don’t go then.’ Robin’s mouth claimed Lara’s.

  ‘I must.’ Lara leaned back and cupped Robin’s face, her intent blue eyes burning deeply. ‘It’s killing me, but I must go.’ She drew her forward and rested their foreheads together. ‘It’s a break in the Ice Queen case, you’ll probably get a call from Lionel Goode in a minute.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ Robin heard her voice breaking, and didn’t care about that either. ‘Sod Sylvie Dean and the lot of them, I just want you.’ She blinked back tears that had raced out of nowhere, taking her by surprise.

  ‘Oh, Robin, my darling!’ Did she really call me her darling? Robin’s heart skipped, before everything dissolved into another one of Lara’s kisses. ‘The second I can get away, the very second, then I want you back in my arms, and in my mouth, and in my bed.’ Her last kiss was searing and when it was done Robin stood, dazed, as Lara stepped away, hands slipping down to squeeze a goodbye. She moved back as the black Golf pulled out of its space, Lara staring until the last second, before looking to the road and driving away.

  Her own call came five minutes later, luckily giving her time to walk to her own car on shaking legs. She pulled the door shut and sat in the warm roaring silence away from the wind that, with Lara’s departure, had turned cold. Holding the phone in her lap Robin stared out of the windscreen at the chasing clouds, not really thinking, just looking at the world which now seemed completely new. A buzz made her blink and she pressed the green button, seeing ‘BOSS’ emblazoned across the screen.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Tweets, it’s me. Get your arse down to the station, this is a three-line whip.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Are you alright? You sound – dazed. Is your head playing you up?’

  She squeezed her eyes shut and ignored her brain replying helpfully: head’s fine, it’s my heart and the rest of my anatomy that’s in turmoil. ‘No, no, I’m ok. Sorry. Yes, I’ll be there in about forty minutes.’

  ‘Out of town, were you? Well, sorry to interrupt your weekend but this is huge.’ Dimly she recognised that the lugubrious Goode was actually excited.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Pretend to care about this, for God’s sake.

  ‘I’ll tell you when you get here. Bye.’

  He rang off, and Robin took a deep breath, trying to push all memories of Lara Black aside for the moment. She put the car into gear, banged the dashboard, and pulled out. Good luck with that, she thought.

  Chapter 12

  On the drive back to town Robin decided that she’d better change into something that didn’t look like she’d been spending the morning at the beach. She knew she just wouldn’t be able to come up with a coherent answer to anybody’s normal question about what she’d been doing, and underneath that lurked the worry that Lara would turn up similarly attired and set tongues wagging. Don’t think about tongues. She sighed, bit her lip hard, and pulled up outside Sue’s to rush in and get changed.

  By the time she walked into the station she felt sure that her dark jeans and casual shirt wouldn’t give anything much away about how she had been filling her Saturday, but as she pushed the doors open to the CID room she realised that she could have been wearing a backless ballgown and riding a unicycle without anybody noticing.

  ‘Tweetie!’ Keith Bolton rushed over, his craggy old face shining with excitement.

  ‘What’s going on?’ She gazed round at groups of detectives chattering hysterically. Determinedly, she turned her back on the cluster of dark blue uniforms in the corner, but somehow her brain registered the tall blonde figure in their midst even without looking. ‘Has the station syndicate won the lottery or something?’

  Bolton laughed, which made her stare at him in surprise. ‘Better than that, my girl.’ He leaned forward and gripped her by the shoulder, eyes dancing. ‘We’ve got a new witness, copper bottomed and double-checked to Christmas, and he says he saw Sylvie Dean shoot Graham Barlow.’

  Robin actually felt her mouth drop open. ‘No! Who is it?’

  Keith waved her across to the incident board, and slapped a meaty hand across a photo that looked like the blown-up corner of a minicab licence. ‘Miran Khalil, taxi driver of this parish, says he was dropping off a fare at the corner of Parsons Avenue and Whitstable Terrace at about half two on the night in question. He says he saw Sylvie Dean, whom he knows quite well by sight from all the clubs and bars she owns down Chapel Street, shoot Barlow in the head.’

  Robin’s mind whirled. ‘Why has he only come forward now?’ and then, ‘Why has he come forward at all? This is going to put a massive target on his back.’

  ‘He’s been in hospital. He’s a refugee, a doctor from Aleppo no less, working as a cabbie whilst his paperwork is sorted out. Turns out our lovely sea air doesn’t suit him. He came down with pneumonia the next morning, and has been in the General ever since. Called it in from a payphone in the hospital lobby on his way home.’ Keith’s face sobered. ‘He said that he’d seen enough death at home in Syria, and he wasn’t frightened about facing some more.’

  ‘Bloody hell. Brave man.’

  ‘He’ll need to be,’ DCI Goode burst into their conversation. ‘Sylvie will have all he
r dogs out looking for him.’ He grinned evilly. ‘But he’s a credible witness and we’ve called her in for questioning on the back of it.’

  Like wild fire the news that the Ice Queen was on the verge of being arrested ripped through the building. When she finally swept in, walking with all the swagger of a movie star and with a small smile on her lips, nobody dared breathe. Behind her, a polished and no doubt highly-paid solicitor scurried along, a worried expression slipping out from behind his habitual smug distain. As the interview room door closed there was a stampede to get to the CCTV room, and to her surprise Robin found herself in the lead. She jammed into the corner beside a dozen other coppers, and then looked round. Some familiar faces were missing from the crush... but there was no time for wonderings, as the show was about to begin.

  On the big screen, in angled view from the camera in the corner of the ceiling, Sylvie could be seen in all her glamorous, wicked beauty.

  ‘This looks a lot smaller than it does on the television,’ she remarked pleasantly.

  She leaned back comfortably in the plastic chair, projecting ease and luxury so strongly that Robin almost expected a waiter would appear in a moment with a glass of chilled champagne. Her clothes were, as always, absolutely gorgeous and ruinously expensive, her hair and nails perfect, and the expression on her face one of amusement. Robin shivered. She’d never seen anyone look more dangerous. Across the table, and in striking contrast, sat Goode and Bolton: balding, overweight, sweaty, but vibrating with the focus of two old hunting dogs. What else do they know? She wondered. It seemed that Mr Porritt, the solicitor, was wondering too as his calm slipped even further and he gulped.

  And then it began. Politely but relentlessly, the two officers asked Dean where she had been on the night of the murder. Time and again the solicitor answered for her, saying bland nothings that basically translated to ‘mind your own business’. In an ordinary conversation that would be that, but Robin marvelled at the way the two men returned over and over to the same question, hammering away at the resilience of the pair opposite them. It was unstoppable, and rather dreadful. At each invitation to ‘just go back to the beginning of that evening’ it felt like another blow was being struck at the wall of smooth answers, until eventually cracks began to show.

  ‘Er, as we’ve said, Miss Dean was at her place of work and then went home,’ improvised her lawyer.

  ‘Oh, so you were at work?’ Enquired DCI Goode, affably. Sylvie shot her employee a look that would have shattered glass. ‘Which of your business properties was this?’

  ‘That’s hardly relevant, Chief Inspector,’ Porritt tried to bluster his way out of it.

  ‘It may be relevant, sir, and as you’ve raised the point I would like you now to clarify it.’

  Bang, bang, bang, went the questioning until the man blurted that it had been a strip club on Nelson Street.

  ‘Oh, that’s right round the corner from the scene of the murder,’ Bolton pointed out helpfully.

  Mr Porritt began to stammer incoherently, Sylvie’s stare cutting into him like a knife. She raised her hand and he fell silent immediately.

  ‘One nil,’ breathed someone amongst the watching throng.

  ‘Yes, the Belle D’Amour is near to where poor Graham died, but I was back at home long before he was killed.’

  ‘What time did you get home, Miss Dean?’

  ‘I can’t remember.’

  ‘Was there anyone there who could confirm your whereabouts?’

  ‘No. Although I might have brought some lovely woman back from my club.’ She smiled, slow and deadly, ‘you’ve got some beauties working here too, haven’t you? That DC Sullivan, she’s quite a looker. And not to mention that icy blonde, what’s her name? Oh yes, Lara Black.’ Robin went red with rage and embarrassment as Sylvie licked her dark purple lips. ‘Are they coming out to play today?’

  DCI Goode smiled like a kindly uncle. ‘I’m afraid not, Miss Dean, they have other duties. Now, back to the night in question. Do you remember the name of the woman who accompanied you home?’

  ‘No, I never ask their names, makes it easier, doesn’t it?’

  ‘But once you were home, you didn’t go out again until the next day?’

  ‘No, I had better things to do. And I’d hardly have been out and about in a dark alley at that time of night, would I? It would be dangerous.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘One all,’

  Keith Bolton now took over for a tranche of questions about Graham Barlow and the work he did for her. They’re stalling, Robin suddenly realised, what are they waiting for? Sylvie was just saying how tragic it had been that ‘poor Graham’ had been killed when the door to the interview room opened and a uniformed constable came in and handed DCI Goode a file.

  ‘One moment, please,’ he said politely, and then he and Bolton’s heads bent over the contents. Despite a mass craning of necks at the screen no-one could see what they were looking at, but Goode took out a white sheet and slid it upside down along the table to Keith. Then they both looked at Sylvie, and Robin felt the atmosphere change.

  ‘So Miss Dean, you’ve explained that to your certain knowledge you were not in the alley running behind the series of garages in Parsons Avenue?’ Lionel Goode’s voice was hoarse, but a ripple of excitement began to run through it. Sylvie’s eyes narrowed at the sound, her nostrils flaring like a predator detecting a worrisome scent. ‘Right, yes, that’s a very clear statement. But I’m afraid I’m confused. Because we have a witness who is also very clear that you were indeed in that alley. And more pertinently to this enquiry, the witness also saw Graham Barlow with you.’

  ‘Who’s this witness?’ Her voice was dagger sharp.

  ‘That’s not important at this stage. What is important is that the witness saw you take a gun and shoot Mr Barlow in the head, delivering an immediately fatal wound.’

  The woman sat forward, her lovely face somehow no longer attractive. Instead she looked bleak and terrible, her eyes glittering like chips of mirror under the harsh fluorescent lights.

  ‘Who’s saying this? What’s his name?’

  ‘Um, Miss Dean has a right to the name of her accuser,’ put in Mr Porritt.

  ‘All in good time, sir. This document,’ Goode picked out another sheet from the folder and handed it to the man opposite, ‘is an order by Mr Justice Everholt for the name of the witness to be withheld until any trial date.’

  Cutting through her solicitor’s bluster Sylvie Dean leaned across the table and wrenched the folder from under DCI Goode’s hand. She ripped it open and scattered the pages as she searched for the name. Implacably, the two detectives said nothing. Finally she made a bitter sound of suppressed fury and flung it back down.

  ‘Very funny,’ she said, fuming, ‘filling the file with the fucking local paper.’ She half rose and everyone in the viewing room tensed. It’s like watching two men baiting a tiger, thought Robin. ‘Who is the fucking witness? Bring him here and let him accuse me face to face!’

  With a sharp movement Bolton slid the sheet he’d been keeping under his hand back across to the senior officer, who turned it over and placed it gently in front of Sylvie and her lawyer. It was a colour photo of a pistol, Robin saw. Around her, everyone drew in a sharp breath. The woman sank slowly back into her seat.

  ‘Do you recognise this gun, Miss Dean?’

  She barely glanced down.

  ‘No.’

  ‘It isn’t one that you have in your possession?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It would be understandable,’ put in Keith Bolton in a spuriously helpful tone of voice, ‘for a small business owner like yourself to have a firearm as a precaution…’

  ‘I’ve told you, it’s not fucking mine.’

  ‘Well, that’s very clear, thank you.’ Lionel Goode pursed his lips as if in deep thought. They’re driving her towards something, but she hasn’t seen it yet. ‘Just another point if I may, does anyone other than you have access to your home?’


  Sylvie gave an inpatient tut. ‘Of course, there are people coming and going all the time.’

  ‘I mean, do they have access to your private rooms?’

  Her grey eyes swivelled and locked onto the man opposite. ‘What?’

  ‘Perhaps I’m not being clear. In your private suite you have a large safe, don’t you? Does anyone other than you have access to that safe?’

  ‘No.’ Then, realisation dawning, ‘what have you done?’

  Keith Bolton leaned in, and suddenly Robin didn’t see the overweight, rude, badly-dressed DS but instead a man with the stillness of a hunter who had patiently tracked his prey and was now about to bring it swiftly down. ‘During our conversation here today a search warrant was served on your home in Montpellier Crescent.’ The woman went white with pure rage but didn’t speak. ‘In the course of that legal search a safe was located, and a separate warrant obtained to open it. On opening a quantity of substances believed to be illegal drugs were found, along with a large sum of cash. And this gun.’

  Again the photograph was pushed forward.

  ‘My client –‘ began the solicitor weakly.

  ‘Shut up.’ Her words whiplashed across the table. ‘Say it. Say your piece.’

  ‘This is a Browning semi-automatic 9mm.’ Sylvie said nothing. ‘From the marks on the grip – here and here – it is clear that it was part of a consignment of weapons destined for incineration but illegally resold onto the black market. Another gun from the same missing shipment was the weapon used to murder Gary Greenway. That was left at the scene.’ Lionel Goode pursed his lips. ‘This one’s a much nicer weapon, perhaps that’s why you decided to keep it.’

  ‘No comment,’

  Keith Bolton took up the reins. ‘The gun is identical in calibre to the one that fired the bullet recovered from Graham Barlow’s brain. We believe that further ballistic and forensic testing will reveal it is the exact gun from which that shot was fired. We also believe that fingerprints, DNA, or other physical evidence will show that the gun was fired by you.’