A link – a bit tenuous but still noteworthy – between Simon Fellows and the Masters case.
I ‘wow’ and ‘uh-huh’ and ‘oh my God’ in all the right places, and then she tells me she’s taking the morning to do some digging – it’s best she does it on her own, keep things tight for now and strictly between us three. She should be back by lunchtime, she says. She’ll give us the nod when she’s ready. Until then, we’re to act normally.
I say, ‘Sure, whatever that means.’
She apologises for the late hour. I tell her it’s fine, we’re still up anyway. We’re watching one of Aiden’s beloved B-movies – some utter nonsense about a vampire motorcycle that runs on blood, not gasoline.
She says that after what she’s heard this evening, a vampire motorcycle doesn’t sound so unbelievable.
Her last words are, ‘Get some sleep.’
And I do. I get some. A short smudge of uninterrupted blackness, somewhere between the hours of 3 and 5 a.m.
When I wake, the birds are singing, Aiden’s snoring softly and the lady upstairs is stomping around already. And yet the world still feels off-kilter. Not changed, but charged somehow. There’s a current in the air that warns I’d be better off staying in bed.
Aiden waking brings normality. A mutual analysis of last night’s sleep – him ‘like a baby’, me ‘ah, you know, off and on’ – followed by a smooch that teeters on the edge of frisky, and then my morning cuppa, delivered promptly just before he leaves. Usually I fall back to sleep at this juncture, waking twenty minutes later, cursing myself stupid as I guzzle down cold tea. This morning, though, I stare at the ceiling, blocking out Dad and Fellows and the weight of what I’ve unleashed, with fantasises of me and Aiden in a chic Manhattan loft space. Mum choosing curtain fabric. Parnell now a lieutenant with the NYPD.
27
Steele gives us the fast version again, but there’s definitely something brewing, something magical up her sleeve. She’s got a look of supreme smugness about her. An air of knowing the gold medal is well and truly in the bag.
‘Seriously though, Kate? Can we really give this much credence to an anonymous phone call?’
I nod in time with Parnell, mirroring his body language to make sure I’m coming across as suitably dubious.
‘No, Lu, but we can give credence to this.’ She pushes a document across her desk. ‘’Cos I promise you, I didn’t sit on the phone to HMP Frankland for over an hour this morning for the good of my health. No, I wanted this.’ She taps the document triumphantly with a ruby red nail. ‘Jacob Pope’s visitor list in the six weeks leading up to his attack on Masters – his mum, his sister, and his solicitor.’ A sneer on the last word.
‘Why was his solicitor visiting?’ I manage a good sneer myself. ‘Don’t tell me the bastard was appealing his murder conviction? He was edging towards “loss of control” when I met him. Crime of passion, he reckoned – his girlfriend “disrespected him”.’
Steele looks down, sorting through a pile of other print-outs. ‘The more important question is, why was a solicitor who has nothing do with criminal law visiting him?’
She holds up a screenshot, a LinkedIn profile:
Nicholas Balfour. Funds Lawyer, PRF Asset Management.
Parnell and I shrug in sync.
Steele’s eyes flash. ‘Aha, well, Benny-boy isn’t the only one who can navigate his way around social media. Turns out Nicholas Balfour is married to one Maria Vestergaard.’ She waits to see if the penny drops.
‘Vestergaard?’ I jump in, the penny clattering to the floor. ‘Simon Fellows’ other half is a Vestergaard.’
‘Top marks, Kinsella. The very same. Erik Vestergaard is Nicholas Balfour’s father-in-law. Balfour visited Jacob Pope in Frankland on 15th April 2017, ten days before Pope killed Masters.’ Another print-out. ‘Pope then made three calls to the same pay-as-you-go number over the following ten days, including the afternoon before the attack. We know the number belongs to Balfour as Pope had to register him as his legal representative so that the prison didn’t record their conversations.’ She sits back, job done. ‘So the floor’s yours, m’dears. Theories?’
There can only be one. It’s been ricocheting around my skull all night, and that was before this latest windfall.
I take a breath, straighten myself up. ‘OK, Simon Fellows killed Holly Kemp because she either had something on him or a business arrangement had gone sour. But because of Serena Bailey’s ID, Christopher Masters becomes the assumed killer. Masters then does what plenty of manipulators do and refuses to confirm or deny, which is obviously a boon for Fellows, but doesn’t come with any guarantee. So when Fellows hears that his old chum, Jacob Pope, is playing house with Masters in Frankland – and let’s be honest, someone like Fellows would know the roll call of most prisons better than the governor – he decides to send in his honorary son-in-law, Nicholas Balfour, under the guise of Pope’s brief, to get a message to him – kill Masters and you and me are friends again. It’s a total win-win. Having Fellows onside is valuable to Pope in prison – Fellows’ name would hold a lot of sway when it comes to protection, if nothing else. And from Fellows’ point of view, the threat of Masters coming clean and the spotlight coming back on Holly is gone.’
‘Timing though,’ says Parnell, scratching his head – not quite Stan Laurel, but not too far off. ‘Masters was in Belmarsh for nearly a year after he was first sentenced, and being local, Simon Fellows would definitely have had his tentacles in there. Why not have Masters killed then?’
‘Too hot?’ suggests Steele. ‘Masters was still big news.’
‘There’s that,’ I agree. ‘But also something like this, there’s only a certain type of person who’s going to agree to do it. You can’t pick just anyone and say, “Hey, fancy adding a long stretch to your sentence?” You need a lifer. Pope got twenty-eight years for killing his girlfriend. He’d have been over sixty before he was even considered for parole. In those circumstances, I think you’d probably stop thinking about getting out and start focusing on how to make the next twenty-eight years as comfy as possible. Being on Simon Fellows’ Christmas card list is one way.’
‘Explain Arlo Rollins then,’ says Steele. ‘He wasn’t a lifer. No history of violence at all, in fact, until he stuck a knife in Jacob Pope.’ She slides another document across, that ruby red fingernail primed to turn this case on its head again. ‘They found a phone hidden in Rollins’ cell – he won’t say how he got it, who gave it to him. He won’t say anything, basically, but there were three calls to the same number Pope called last year – Nicholas Balfour’s number. The last call was Saturday afternoon. Rollins attacked Pope the next morning.’
‘Got to be old-fashioned intimidation,’ says Parnell, sickened. ‘Kill or be killed – either you or someone you love on the outside.’
‘Fellows wasn’t hanging around,’ I say. ‘Friday afternoon, we interview him and he realises he’s finally been linked to Holly Kemp, even if we’ve got no proof to throw at him yet. Within two days, Jacob Pope is dead, silenced. He’s not taking any chances.’