Before heading to the hospital to speak to James Campbell, commander Thorne had called ahead to Rollins and Flair, only to find out that he was still in surgery because of his badly broken leg.
With interrogation of Campbell not possible, Thorne had moved on to the next priority: searching Dana Brooke's house.
The wait for the warrant to be issued and delivered had been frustrating for Bayley. Some of the time had been spent handing over Anna Fernandez and Darryl Antonius over to uniformed officers for transportation to the station. The coffee cup that Bayley had collected had been sent away to the lab for analysis.
When the warrant had arrived, the hard work of searching the enormous house had begun, with the assistance of some uniformed officers, and detective Flair, who had been recalled from the hospital. For her part, Bayley had found nothing of interest in the rooms she had searched, apart from Anna's cleaning cupboard. As the housekeeper had said herself, there were several poisonous cleaning products and substances in there. Bayley had seized them all as potential evidence. If the coroner's report came back with a match on any of them, Anna Fernandez would be going to the top of the suspect list. However, either Campbell or Antonius could have had access to the cleaning cupboard.
When the search was completed, commander Thorne reconvened her team out on the driveway for a debrief.
"Not a lot. That's the best way I can summarise what we've got," the boss said. "Martinez found a bunch of cleaning products. Flair found a pair of leather gloves in Campbell's bedroom that looked like they had been hastily shoved in there. We'll get them sent off to the lab, along with the rubber gloves Martinez found in the cleaning cupboard. If our killer touched that coffee cup, I'm going to assume they weren't stupid enough to leave fingerprints behind. Maybe there will be traces of a matching chemical on the gloves. Until then, it's time to start interrogating Fernandez and Antonius, while we wait for the one legged wonder to wake up from his surgery, and results to come back from the coroner."
Wanting to show what she could do, Bayley hoped that she might be allowed to lead one of the interrogations. It wasn't her place to ask for that, though. Thorne would make the decision.
Before the commander could dismiss her team to head back to the station, her phone rang. She took it out of her jeans pocket and answered the call. "Thorne."
Bayley listened to her superior's side of the conversation.
"Hello, Steve. Have you got something for me?"
"Definitely poisoned? Likely dead before the impact with the truck. Interesting."
"Tetrobiazipene? Never heard of it."
"Really? That is a good lead. I'll get my tech expert on it."
"Thank you, Steve. Goodbye."
Thorne ended the call and put the phone back in her pocket before addressing the team. "Right, the coroner says Dana Brooke was definitely poisoned, and was likely dead before the car hit the truck. He said whoever poisoned her used a little known chemical called Tetrobiazipene. It's tasteless, odourless, and extremely deadly if ingested. Apparently she had enough of it in her system to kill at least ten people. It is also extremely rare."
"That's good. Makes it traceable," Flair said.
Thorne nodded. "Exactly. It's only used by chemical companies. It's not commercially available to the public, which is why I'm going to put a call in to Clementine now. One of those three got hold of that Tetrobiazipene from somewhere. If we can find a connection between one of them and someone who works in the chemical industry, we might be able to crack this case."
Bayley had to question the wisdom of the killer, whoever it was. They apparently hadn't bargained on the chemical being identified easily, or how simple it would then be for an expert like Clementine to comb through a list of friends and associates to find a connection in the chemical industry.
Thorne had her phone out again, placing her call back to the office. Again, Bayley listened to the conversation.
"Clem, I've got a job for you. You're going to look into Darryl Antonius, James Campbell and Anna Fernandez. They all work for Dana Brooke, who was murdered today by poisoning."
"Yes, that Dana Brooke. The chemical used as the poison is incredibly rare and not available for sale to the public. So what I need you to do is find a connection between one of those people and someone who works in the chemical industry."
"Thanks, Clem. Get on it now. We're heading back to the station."
Thorne ended the call and spoke to the team again. "Okay, let's go."
Detective Cole looked at Bayley as they walked back towards the SUV they had arrived in. "Twenty bucks says she has something by the time we get back."
"No bet," Bayley said. "I don't know Clementine yet, but I'm sure she's excellent at what she does."
Cole gave her a knowing smile. "You have no idea."
Half an hour later, Bayley walked back into the Intelligence Division offices with the rest of the team who had been at Dana Brooke's residence. They found Clementine standing by a white board that was fixed to the wall near to the door that led to the so-called Batcave. On the board, there was a picture of a bald man with a short black beard.
"Robert Holcroft," Clementine announced, slapping her hand on the picture for effect. "Foreman at Stamford Industrial Products."
"He's associated with one of our suspects?" Thorne asked.
"Yes he is."
"Which one?" Thorne asked impatiently as Clementine toyed with her.
"He's Facebook friends with James Campbell."
"Campbell?" Bayley asked in surprise. Their prime suspect was now the man who had been in the car wreck with Dana Brooke. What didn't make sense was why he would have gotten into the car with her if he had just poisoned her. It was practically risking giving himself a death sentence.
"Campbell was in a car with Brooke when he drove head on into a truck," Thorne told Clementine.
"Yes, he was," Cole said. "But didn't the coroner say there was way more poison in her system than it would have taken to kill one person? Maybe he didn't expect her to suffer the effects so soon?"
"Yes. Yes, you could be on to something there," Thorne said thoughtfully. "Right now the next thing that needs to happen is this Robert Holcroft's arse needs to be brought in. Martinez, you're with me. We're going to his place of work to pick him up. Flair, get back to the hospital and update Rollins. Tell the hospital staff that James Campbell is under arrest on suspicion of murder. I want you or Rollins in his room at all times."
"Yes, ma'am," Flair said.
A couple of minutes later, armed with an address for Stamford Industrial Products, Bayley was back downstairs, getting back into one of the SUVs. Commander Thorne was behind the wheel as the SUV started roaring along the tunnel towards the Batcave's exit.
"Clementine is good at her stuff, huh?" Bayley ventured for the sake of making conversation.
"Yes, she is. She's the best," Thorne said with a tenderness that Bayley picked up on. The reason was soon revealed to her. "She's also my adopted daughter, so be careful what you say about her."
"Oh!" Bayley exclaimed. "There doesn't seem to be much of an age difference between you."
"Ten years," Thorne said. "She was twelve, I was twenty two. I was stationed over here with MI6, and Clem lived next door to me with her mom. Her dad died when she was young. Her mom had brain cancer, and when she died there was no other family or anything to take her. I had gotten close to her, so I pulled a lot of strings and was able to legally adopt her."
"That's a lovely story. Well, I mean, the last part is," Bayley quickly corrected.
"I know what you mean," Thorne said.
Bayley picked up vibes that Thorne didn't want to talk about her relationship with Clementine anymore, so she let them ride in silence for a while.
"Just so you're clear, Martinez, if this Holcroft guy doesn't come to the station voluntarily and start giving us answers about supplying Campbell with that poison, I'm going to arrest him and get answers out of him. You need to know what that means."
The way the final sentence was delivered told Bayley what she needed to know. Things were done differently in Intelligence Division than elsewhere. In those cells down in the Batcave, she could imagine suspects being given a bit of physical persuasion to talk. It wasn't something she was thrilled about, but Intelligence Division was successful under Thorne's leadership. Everyone knew that.
"I'm okay with what we have to do. There's a murderer to arrest," Bayley said.
"And an accessory to murder," Thorne pointed out. "Something tells me Mr Holcroft will be wanting to make a deal by the time we're finishing with him."
Bayley realised there was an opportunity on the horizon to prove herself. "If we end up having to hardball him, I'd like to lead it."
Thorne glanced over at her from the driver's seat. "Yeah?"
"Yeah. People look at me like I'm the good cop too much for my liking. I think it's because of the way I look. I can be tough when I need to be. Let me show you."
Thorne nodded. "Very well. If it comes to that, he's all yours."
A/N: Thank you to everyone who left a review on the previous chapter.
It looks like Intelligence Division are on the verge of a breakthrough in the case. Will Bayley be able to get them the testimony they need?