IMPOSTURE: Hunters become the hunted in this gripping murder mystery by Ray Clark (book series for 10 year olds TXT) 📕

sleepy officers. This guy comes along, offers them some shut-eye at home in their own beds. Come back first thing, they’re gonna jump at it.”

“Meanwhile he ships his next victim in without a hitch,” said Sharp.

“It’s a possibility,” said Gardener, “or is it someone else altogether, who knows as much – if not more – about the incident, than we all do?”

“That seems obvious,” said Benson, “which brings us back to Rosie Henshaw and another possibility.”

“Go on,” said Gardener.

“Is she working with someone – Palmer being the most obvious?”

“But why?” asked Gardener. “What’s the endgame?”

“Can’t be the money,” said Reilly. “They appear to be rolling in it anyway, and if her husband dies, she’ll inherit it all.”

“Maybe,” said Sharp, “but if all this money has been made illegally, how will she stand? Can she keep it?”

“That’s a good question, Colin,” said Gardener, “but not for us to decide.”

“Knowing this lot,” said Reilly, “they won’t have everything in one basket. There’s bound to be shit loads of money in a Swiss bank account somewhere.”

“Or is Rosie working with Zoe Harrison?” asked Patrick Edwards.

“Maybe she just fed us a pack of lies about what she really felt for Harrison,” said Benson.

“All good points,” said Gardener. “But the person in the Evoque was male, which suggests three people involved. That’s too many for my liking, gets too messy.”

The door to the incident room opened and DCI Briggs walked in, his face impassive, his mood sombre.

Gardener read the signs. “What’s happened?”

“News just in, James Henshaw has died.”

Chapter Forty

Gardener placed his bottle of water on the desk. “Two down, two to go.”

Briggs took a seat at the back of the room, allowing Gardener to continue. “When?”

“About half an hour since.”

It would be pointless checking on Rosie Henshaw’s whereabouts. James Henshaw was beyond help when they found him. He seriously doubted she’d have had either him or the others holed up somewhere with everything else going on in her life, and her every movement being watched. Although everyone was a possible suspect, he still didn’t think she was top of the list.

“Looks like Sean and I will have to pay a visit and break the bad news, and very probably coerce her into identifying the body. In that case, can we try to look a little closer at James Henshaw? According to Winter’s team, his last movements never put him at the airport.”

“Where did they put him?” asked Rawson. “Does anyone actually know?”

“No,” said Anderson. “According to his wife he left the house intending to go to Brussels for a meeting that he never made. From Winter’s notes, we discovered that he never even boarded a flight. Why was that? Where did he go?”

“Or, where was he made to go?” said Thornton.

“How did he get to the airport?” Gardener asked. “Did he have a taxi booked? If so there must be a record. Did one of the others pick him up?” The senior officer glanced at Bob Anderson. “Bob can you call Rosie Henshaw and find out if she knows?”

Bob Anderson nodded and left the room, returning a few minutes later. “Palmer picked him up.”

“Back to square one,” said Gardener, “so we don’t know where either of them went and in which direction they were heading.”

“If she’s telling the truth, Stewart,” said Briggs. “Isn’t she a suspect?”

“Technically, yes, but a lot of what we’ve so far uncovered shows it would be very difficult for her to pull it off.”

“But not impossible,” countered Briggs. “If she really hates her husband, and the rest of them for what they’ve done to her and the kids, she could be capable of anything. Also think about the way women kill, usually from the inside, very rarely anything as direct as a knife or a gun. What happened to both Michael Foreman and James Henshaw started on the inside. I know it’s not very nice but she will have to be questioned more closely.”

Gardener nodded, unable to dispute anything Briggs was saying.

“Sean and I will handle that one. There was mention of the airports just then, has anyone had any luck?”

“We might be able to help there, sir,” said Julie Longstaff. “Sarah and I spent most of our time there today with some operational support officers and a couple of super recognisers.”

Gardener had his fingers crossed. “What did you find?”

“Digital ID and photo recognition software pulled something up,” said Gates, “and fortunately for us, the airport archives all the CCTV so the super recognisers came into their own.”

“They managed to spot three of them,” said Longstaff. “Michael Foreman, Zoe Harrison, and Anthony Palmer on their return into the country. From that we have information of when they left, where they went, and when they returned.”

“Seriously?” asked Gardener, unable to believe that sometimes good news came into an incident room as well.

“We’re still documenting it,” said Gates, “but we’re pretty confident we can make something of it.”

“This backs up something that was mentioned yesterday,” said Gardener. “Maybe they went out under false names and disguises but they’ve had the nerve to return as themselves. Everything the DPA did seems to have been online, which means there must be a record. I realise they were brilliant at covering their tracks, but there has to be a trail somewhere, so speak to cyber crime again. Maybe returning as themselves is the mistake we needed.”

“We’re pretty sure that’s what happened. They all went out on separate days, all within a week of the hit and run,” said Longstaff, “and they all came back on separate days. None of them were together. They were all in different parts of the world. Michael Foreman was in Miami; Anthony Palmer in the Bahamas; and Zoe Harrison in New Zealand.”

“Do we know what names they used?”

“I think