The Rift by Rachel Lynch (good book recommendations txt) 📕

tangible proof. Gone were the days when Counter Terrorism officers used strong-arm tactics to extract information. Everything had to be legitimate and legally watertight now. Presumably, that’s why he held his post. He was careful. The buck stopped with him.

Seconds passed between them.

‘Of course, I’ll get it for you,’ he said.

‘Thank you,’ she said, not daring to add anything else lest he change his mind. They turned their attention to the questioning of the two suspects in custody. They’d been taken to a local station in Lyon, and a secure preliminary interview was being set up via video link. ‘I’ll let you know when we’re all set up for the interviews with the two suspects we have in custody,’ she said, and left his office.

As she walked, she called Sir Conrad’s private number and told him about what she’d learned about Nabil Tradings.

‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ he said.

Helen thought it an old-fashioned statement which reminded her of her father, but acknowledged that Sir Conrad’s vocab came directly from the twentieth century.

‘Rafik, you say?’ he asked.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Well, well… I’ll be damned.’

He hung up.

Chapter 34

As she neared her office, Helen’s phone rang. She was still distracted by Sir Conrad’s reaction to her findings on Nabil Tradings and didn’t check the number.

‘Major Scott?’ The voice spoke in English.

‘Yes, speaking.’ It came from a forensic contact who was heading the emergency search at the property they’d raided today. They got introductions and small talk out of the way and went straight down to business. A frisson of excitement flickered inside her, and she hoped it was positive news: something she could work with.

‘In the rear room of the property, extensive genetic matter was recovered and sent to the BioLab here in Lyon. I’ve requested as speedy a turnaround time as they can muster – after all, we’re paying five thousand euros for the service.’

Helen nodded. ‘Right, and?’ she asked.

‘They’ve identified workable DNA but haven’t profiled it yet.’

‘Describe the room to me.’

‘A bedroom overlooking the street. The window was shuttered. There was a single chair, a cot bed, what looks like a vessel for ablutions and a toilet.’

‘Where was the DNA extracted from?’ Helen asked.

‘The bed. And the vessel containing live excreta.’

‘Good. When can we expect the results?’

‘Sometime in the next twenty-four hours, I’m told.’

‘Are they examining the specimen for diet too?’ Helen asked. Any information they could gather about Hakim’s wellbeing was crucial.

‘Of course.’

Helen hung up.

Back in her office, she opened her computer and saw that she’d been sent a live link to the interview of the two suspects. They were ready. She emailed Peter the secure password to join the proceedings. He replied straight away and told her that he was joining now. She did the same.

Two cells came onto the screen. In them sat the two men arrested this morning. They looked nonchalant and bored. Lawyers sat next to both of them, paid for by Interpol.

Biographies of the suspects had been filed by the lawyers. Helen had already scanned them. Arrested and interviewed under caution, they each had to at least give their names, nationalities and dates of birth. They were both Moroccan and here in France illegally. She had scant details on their histories but knew where they’d been to school (for a couple of years), where they’d worked (legitimately only) and their passport details. There were gaping holes in travel histories, but it was a start.

The interviewing officers signalled to Helen that they were ready to commence, and the preliminaries were got out of the way. In each room, the men answered a simple yes or no, as appropriately nudged by their lawyers.

The details of all present were read out in English and French. It was made very clear that the men were under caution and as such anything they said would be recorded and given in evidence. Helen was used to this kind of interview procedure, which was becoming more and more common among investigating teams. The senior investigating officer’s physical presence, it was surmised, during the initial stages of the proceedings, was best used remotely, as an observer. Sometimes, interviews in person caused vital signals to be lost, due to the officers in question zeroing in on faces and words, rather than the whole picture. It was only once watched back on tape, that certain nuances became clear. This way, both she and Peter could scrutinise body language patterns, and the overall picture. She’d already instructed the first few questions and she was glad to see that, unlike the police officer interviewing Amélie Laurent in Paris, the Lyon officers were sticking to her brief to the letter.

It was pretty standard stuff until Ahmad Azzine was mentioned.

‘Sand Cat,’ the officer emphasised.

Helen watched the faces of the two men in separate rooms. Their body language was simple to read.

Both lawyers leant over to their clients and whispered into the men’s ears privately. Each man replied, ‘No comment.’

Helen was reminded of her first interviews in training years ago, at Pirbright, Surrey. Since then, she’d come to appreciate it as an art. Listening to the proliferation of ‘no comment’ was a standard and tedious part of her job. However, what was indisputable was how a human being reacts to being shown photographs. She’d studied experiments where people were exposed to highly emotive images, like war zones, compared to familiar images, such as of somebody they knew and felt comfortable with. Both men displayed signals of the latter when they looked at Sand Cat, if only for a fraction of a second before they shut down. Helen spotted the subtle reactions because of experience: she’d been waiting for them. She made a note of the time, so she could rewind the recording later.

She watched as the first pieces of evidence, as handed to the lawyers before the interviews began, were presented. The two men were shown photos of the Peugeot driven from Paris to Lyon. They were also shown the witness statement from the old woman, the tip-off from the witness overhearing