Chapter 4

Gillian Foster faced their suspect, now a brunette in the absence of her red wig, with Ria Torres by her side. They sat in a cold and bare police interview suite in silence while Gillian reviewed the police file.

She slid the file across to Torres and sat upright in the uncomfortable chair, crossing her legs under the table and taking a moment to just observe the suspect. The woman had short brown hair, and heavy make-up. She was a very slim build and had pale unblemished white skin. And she was sitting very uncomfortably, be it because of the situation or the beating she had received in her cell, or probably both. She was in her mid to late twenties.

"You want to tell us your name?"

She was met with stony silence. The police had taken her prints when they checked her in, she had a record for shoplifting several years back.

"Is it Philipa?"

It was Philipa. Or at the very least that was the name she went by. When she had been picked up before, she had an expired learners permit under the name Philipa Townsend and this was the name she had given. They had no aliases show up for anyone with the same prints or mugshot as this woman. If it wasn't her real name, it was certainly the name that she went by. Her marginal widening of the eyes and opening of the mouth in the fraction of a second before she schooled her features confirmed this. It wasn't the easiest read, Philipa had sustained a black eye resulting in swelling around the cheek bone. Her reactions to their questions would be masked somewhat.

"Had you been to the St Regis bar before last night?"

A momentary squint of the eyes and quickly concealed shift of her posture suggested that she had.

"Do you always go to the St Regis, or do you rotate the locations you strike?"

Philipa looked up to meet her gaze for a half a second before returning her focus to the file between them.

"Are you working alone?"

Her bottom lip and chin drew upwards while she briefly shifted her eyes to the side.

"Is someone arranging the targets for you? Or telling you which bars to hit?... are there more pickpockets like you working for someone?..."


In the observation room behind the glass, Will Mallory turned sideways in his seat and directed his attention up to Cal Lightman who sat a foot behind him and to his right. Lightman's attention was fixed on Philipa Townsend, watching every word she didn't say.

"We already asked these questions, and she's not saying anything. You're not going to get anything from her."

"Au contrare, we're getting a lot from her. First of all, you didn't ask the right questions, in the right way, and in the right order," Cal sat beside him in the vacant chair then, his eyes still on the suspect and his finger pointing in her direction, but his attention divided now to offer Mallory an insight into how they worked. Gillian continued her questioning, Torres stepping in with an item from the file or a follow up question of her own occasionally while in the other room Cal pointed out every reaction on Philipa's face and what it likely meant.

"Why aren't you in there anyway?"

"I like to watch," Cal told him, looking at him for the first time to emphasise the innuendo.

As soon as the double entendre registered Mallory looked away from Cal, but not before he saw disgust register on his face. He really was a by the book kind of guy. A real choir boy.

"No, really. I sometimes like to watch the interview rather than conduct it. I find it less distracting if I can read the faces without having to ask the questions. And sometimes you've got to know your audience too, don't you? I wouldn't send them in alone with someone dangerous, but Foster and Torres know what they're doing and your suspect in this case is definitely more likely to respond the way we want to them rather than someone like me."

Mallory reconsidered Cal with the explanation he provided. He half turned his attention back to him, considering the information.

"What if she recognises Dr Foster from the bar last night?"

"Oh, she does. She absolutely does. But Gillian has a way about her that tends to put people at ease. Make them comfortable in her presence… Doesn't she?" Cal asked the question pointedly at Mallory, looking for his reaction.

Mallory looked away immediately, but his attention went to Foster rather than the suspect, seemingly unconsciously. Cal could see how impressive he found her. Part of him wanted to slap the man and tell him to get his eyes off her, but really he understood it. And this man was no threat to him or his partner. Six months ago, he'd have been stalking the man to make sure of it. But now, there was no need, and he found it much easier to let it go these days when men showed interest in her. He turned back then to focus on the interview. Despite what the unknowledgeable cop beside him thought, they were making progress.


Torres had taken over now, asking Philipa about other bars around town. She listed as many as she could think of; both expensive ones, frequented by suits and escorts, and dive bars. The reactions told them that Philipa and whoever she was conspiring with were not wasting their time on the dive bars, instead focusing on the kinds of places where people let their guard down. Places where you found expensive watches and jewellery and stuffed wallets. And places where the clientele may not want to report that they had been robbed given that they were not out on the town with their wives, or perhaps that they didn't want their faces on the news given whose time they were paying for.

While Torres asked the questions, Gillian made notes of all of the bars that triggered the response they were looking for. Cal was doing the same in the observation room.

Eventually, tiring of the questions, Philipa Townsend spoke. Finally.

"Are we done here yet? I'm tired."

Torres began gathering the contents of the file and Gillian closed her notepad over.

"We can finish up for tonight, sure. Thank you, Ms Townsend. You've been very helpful," Gillian said as she stood and picked up the folders and notes.

Philipa scoffed at her and said, "I didn't tell you a thing."

"Thank you, Ms Townsend," Gillian finished politely as she and Ria Torres exited the room, leaving the police to take their pickpocket back to her jail cell.


"That's a lot of bars," Cal said once Gillian and Torres opened the door and began to make their way inside.

"Yeah, there's no way she's working alone. To keep that size of operation going? They have to have a well organised coordinated effort."

Cal nodded slowly from his slouched seated position. Then he turned to Mallory, who was standing to offer Gillian his seat. "You think you can get surveillance on all those bars? Maybe get some info on the on the women that the victims associate with. They seem to be hitting the places where wealthy men head out with expensive women. Could be that the targets are being selected by someone with inside information. You should talk to some of the bar staff for information too."

Gillian was politely refusing to take the offered seat while agreeing with Cal's proposed approach.

"They seem to work mainly weekends. If you can get a couple of teams of officers around town for next week, our team can train your people for what to look for. I'd suggest making no arrests unless absolutely certain, but if you can get a warrant to record, we can review the footage and piece together a profile of who's who in this. Then you can move in and make your arrests."

"I'll see what I can do, but we're a little short on man power. We may have to make a few carefully selected targets and work with that. We can catch up on Monday morning, if that works for you?"

Mallory was directing all of his questions to Gillian, much to the amusement of everyone in the room. He didn't seem to be doing it deliberately, but he was pretty obvious about it. It was a combination of his attraction to her with his clear disdain for Cal.

Gillian nodded to him as she leaned her body towards Cal. She was about to ask him if he was ready to go home when he stood and intervened. Cal was wearing that smile he had when he was up to something and too pleased with himself to care. He was thoroughly enjoying Mallory's awkwardness and Gillian's resulting discomfort.

"Yes, Captain Mallory, that works just fine for us, doesn't it ladies?" he pointedly asked both Gillian and Torres.

Both gave nods of agreement tempered with humor to Cal's antics as well as his query.

"Come on, lets go home, it's getting late," Gillian said to both him and Torres and the three headed for the door.


The three of them walked out the door of the police precinct into the car park in high spirits, waiting until they were in the open evening air, Gillian spoke unconcerned with Torres' barely concealed laughter.

"Do you have to do that?"

He knew he wasn't in trouble, she was smiling jovially as she asked the question.

"Yes. Yes I do have to do that," he replied with an open mouthed smile. Noticing Torres' amusement at the situation he went on, directing his next comment to her, "did you know he asked her out?"

"Nooo!"

"Caaal!"

"Yeah, he did. And he's still eyeing her up like a lost puppy. It's sad really."

Gillian slapped Cal's arm and then grabbed hold of it, dragging him towards her.

"Leave him alone, we have to work with him."

"He should've thought of that, shouldn't he?"

They had reached their cars by now and parted ways with shared laughter on that note. Torres heading to hers and Cal and Gillian to theirs.