MURDER IS SKIN DEEP by M.G. Cole (read dune .txt) 📕

Garrick had an unsettling feeling he knew who was following them.

“My money is it was the press,” he growled quietly. He’d received a message that Fraser had appeared live on two Sunday morning shows, and a glance at the Sunday papers in the petrol station showed him that, despite the country slowly falling apart with political strife, Kline-Watson’s death had ensured they’d made the front page again.

By the end of the day, PC Fanta Liu had found more footage of Rebecca’s new companion. Taken from the Tonbridge car park cameras, the newcomer could just be seen walking past the gates thirty-five minutes before Rebecca had showed up. It wasn’t the clearest footage, but it had been enough for PC Harry Lord to pop into Tonbridge Station and ask to see what they had around the same time.

His hunch paid off. A clearer image of the figure was backtracked exiting the station a few minutes earlier. The stranger had arrived from London Bridge Station. And hadn’t been carrying any luggage.

“Any guesses on what they picked up from Matthews?” Garrick asked the room.

“I’m struggling to see how this is connected to the first body or Kline-Watson,” Wilkes admitted. “Rebecca wasn’t in the country for the first murder.”

“No. But what if she is trying to help Oscar Benjamin leave the country? If anybody knows where he is, it’s her. I suspect that Derek Fraser is now too high profile a target for extortion. If that’s what they were planning. And my money is on the fact Kline-Watson was in on it too. Rebecca Ellis claims she was demanding he reveal Hoy’s identity. What if they were arguing because the whole thing had gone wrong?”

“And Kline-Watson was the weakest link,” suggested Chib.

“So that’s the link we need to expose if we are going to make any progress.”

Fanta held up her hand. Garrick sighed heavily.

“I keep telling you, you don’t have to do that.”

“Kline-What’s-His-Face was in arrears with his landlord, and I’ve found out he owed his bank ninety thousand in business loans he had accrued to start the gallery, on top of previous debts. From the first Hoy sale he paid off the landlord, but his commission, even on the two new sales, wasn’t enough to pay the bank who were threatening to foreclose on the business.”

“Just as it was on the verge of becoming a success.”

“He kept all his financial records on the computer in the gallery, but it wasn’t configured for email. He must have done that on his phone.”

“Which is still missing,” said Chib. “We’ve contacted his service provider.”

Fanta continued reading from her bulleted list. “All the security cameras from neighbouring premises show nothing useful. Pretty much none of them looked out onto the street.”

Garrick waved an annoyed hand across the evidence wall. “Time and time again, we are facing a series of dead-ends.”

“Not entirely.” All eyes turned to PC Sean Wilkes, who blushed at being the sudden centre of attention. “I mean, it might be a red herring, but Tonbridge got in touch over Oscar Benjamin. They’re now interested in finding him too.”

Garrick sat in his chair and folded his arms. With a nod, he encouraged Wilkes to continue.

Wilkes cleared his throat. “Well, sir, when you flashed his face up at the press conference, it jogged a couple of memories. Two witnesses thought they’d seen him three days before our murder. They reached out to Tonbridge because they’re directly dealing with an armed robbery.”

Garrick gave an involuntary gasp. “Armed robbery! And he’s a suspect?”

“The witnesses think he, or somebody like him, held-up a security truck on its way from the Securitas depot there.”

The depot was an unmarked secure holding facility for the Bank of England. In 2006 it had the ignominy of being the target for Britain’s biggest robbery when fifty-three million pounds was stolen. Thirty-two million of which was still missing.

Garrick was aware of the heist, and glad he wasn’t involved with the case. Dealing with criminal gangs was often worse than murder.

“How much was stolen?”

“It was a scheduled delivery for two million–”

“Two million quid?” Garrick barked.

Wilkes held up a cautionary finger. “But there was a last-minute schedule change. So there was only, ha, ‘only’, eighty thousand loaded.” Wilkes laughed, then immediately regretted it under Garrick’s withering look. He composed himself. “Two people, armed with shotguns took the money minutes after it left the depot. They fled on foot. Oscar Benjamin fits the description of one man seen pulling his mask off a couple of streets away.”

“We need to bring Rebecca Ellis in for formal questioning,” said Chib.

Garrick was undecided. “Not yet. She’s concealing something from us. She may not have been in the country during the robbery or the murder at Fraser’s place. Yet everything seems to orbit around her.” Talk about a femme fatale, he thought. It was becoming clear she was mixed up with Oscar Benjamin’s illegal activities.

“If you find that interesting, then you will love this,” said Chib, looking up from a message on her phone. “The owners of Rebecca’s Airbnb live in Italy. They say the property was booked for four weeks. By Oscar Benjamin.”

The scent of the trail was getting stronger and with it fragments of the case were beginning to form a coherent picture for Garrick. Unlike the Hoy masterpieces. With the threat of Rebecca leaving the country soon, they had started the wheels in motion to get a search warrant for her Airbnb. As it had been booked and paid for by the very man they were looking for, he felt confident that it would come through quickly. Until then, the priority was establishing a connection between Ellis, Kline-Watson, and the first victim.

Instinct told him that there was one, but the connections were too vague. Whispers in the darkness that he couldn’t quite link. Unlike earlier, he was feeling sharp and alert. In fact, he was feeling better than he had done in a long while.