‘I think I’d like you to leave now, Inspector,’ Zach said, standing.
His eyes were alight with a fire she hadn’t yet seen.
‘We’ll see ourselves out,’ she said, heading for the front door. She had no wish to be fed more lies by the weak, ineffectual man.
And yet there had been something in that final expression – a flame of anger, a heat of aggravation – that left her with one final question.
Did Zachary Daynes possess more backbone than she’d thought?
FIFTY-NINE
‘Bloody hell, Penn, you’re right. The Porters don’t have any children,’ Stacey said, sitting back in her seat. They had all assumed that Reece’s last name was Porter, and Penn had even written it on the statement ahead of time before speaking to Reece the day before. And the man hadn’t corrected him.
‘Where the hell did they find him?’ Stacey asked, wondering why the Porters had appeared to unofficially adopt him.
‘Didn’t the boss say Mr Porter worked in some kind of social care role?’
‘Yeah but I’m pretty sure there are strict rules against getting too involved with your cases, especially taking them home and passing them off as your own child,’ Stacey answered. ‘May be why Mrs Porter was so against him coming to the station.’
‘To be fair, they appear to have done the guy a lot of good.’
‘Living with his not parents in his mid-thirties, odd-jobbing for neighbours and obsessing over a girl half his age?’ Stacey queried.
‘It’s all relative. Reece Gordon, as we now know him, was thrown out of the care system at sixteen. He took no exams and did his first time in prison two months before his nineteenth birthday.’
‘For what?’
‘Burglary. Next was breaking and entering, two more stretches for burglary, and his last and longest stretch was for assault and battery almost ten years ago. Not a peep since.’
‘Okay, call me psychic but I’m gonna guess that Alec Porter was involved somehow.’
‘He was one of the visiting social workers to the halfway house where Reece was placed after the last prison stay. Not a sniff of trouble since,’ Stacey answered. ‘And I just can’t argue with that. If he was robbing and beating people before the Porters took him in and now he isn’t, I don’t really care what ethical lines Alec Porter blurred to do it.’
‘But we don’t know that for sure. Burglary and assault are not petty crimes. He knows how to access a property, and he can be violent.’
‘Does he know how to use a gun?’ Stacey queried, playing devil’s advocate.
Stacey pulled her keyboard back towards her. She had appreciated a break from the various CCTV leads she’d been asked to follow, but now it was back to it.
‘Not sure you can put it off any longer, Penn,’ she said without looking at him.
This news was not gonna go down well with the boss. She was gonna be seriously pissed off.
SIXTY
‘Penn, are you kidding me?’ Kim cried. ‘The Porter house – now,’ she said to Bryant. ‘I repeat: Penn, are you fucking kidding me?’
Penn assured her he wasn’t and went on to explain how the error had occurred. Not really listening, she was focussing on containing the explosion that was brewing in her mouth.
She didn’t really know who she was angry at. She just knew that assumption was a dangerous tool in their line of work.
‘I have good news as well,’ Penn offered once he’d finished.
‘It’d better be really good.’
‘McGregor and Co called. Herbert McGregor has handled the Dayneses’ financial concerns for almost forty years, and the man himself will see you at midday.’
‘Okay, Penn,’ she said, ending the call.