Fall From Grace Read Online Free PDF Page B

I’ve got a guy looking into his phone records for me, but I was hoping I might be able to get some sort of steer on what this last case of his might have been about.’
    ‘So this is the Leonard Franks?’
    ‘Yeah. You know him?’
    ‘A little. I’d heard rumours he’d disappeared.’
    ‘What else have you heard?’
    ‘Nothing sinister. I think people were just surprised. He was – what? – thirty-odd years on the force. You don’t last that long without becoming a minor celebrity.’
    ‘What did you make of him?’
    ‘He had a good reputation. People liked him. Franks was as straight as they come, so there was no wriggle room if you based your police work on Hollywood movies. But if you played by the rules, he had your back, every day of the week. You got any sighters on what happened to him?’
    ‘I’ve only just started, so it’s all still coming into focus. What I’m more certain of is that the file was the catalyst for his disappearance.’
    ‘You said his daughter works at the Met?’
    ‘Right.’
    ‘And her super put the kibosh on a database search?’
    I understood what he was driving at: everything was audited and logged, which meant the minute Task went into the database, he’d leave a trail. Dangerous given the fact that Craw had put her boss, and possibly others, on high alert for searches related to Leonard Franks’s disappearance. I thought of what Craw had said about Reed, the cop who had set up the original missing persons file. He’d been unable to find the case Franks had been looking into, or at least one big enough to affect him in the way that it had.
    And then I remembered something else she’d said.
    Maybe it wasn’t an official police file .
    She’d floated the possibility that a civilian might have sent Franks the file, one they’d presumably put together themselves. It was an interesting angle. Even if it didn’t explain the perfect timing – being given a separate case while waiting for the CCRU to dot the i’s and cross the t’s – it would explain why the CCRU knew nothing about it, and why Reed wasn’t able to connect the case to anything Franks had worked on at the Met.
    But if it was a civilian, they surely would have known Franks in some way: his background, his time at the Met, cases he’d worked. They’d need the skill to construct a compelling file, something to make him sit up and take notice. It made sense they would have crossed paths with Franks, perhaps known his cases. As I lingered on that last thought, I picked up my pen and made a note: Was the sender an ex-cop?
    ‘Raker?’
    ‘Sorry. You can probably hear my brain whirring from there.’
    Going into the database and searching for ‘Leonard Franks’ would compromise Task. But then more of my conversation with Craw came back to me: The way he talked about it made it sound like it had some connection to a case he’d already worked at the Met. He talked about it like he was already familiar with it . There was a possible workaround.
    ‘Task, do you reckon you could search the databases for any unsolved cases in London, for as far back as you can go? It’s broad enough not to set alarm bells off – but it means I can go back through them and look for any involvement Franks might have had.’
    ‘You’re going to get a shitload of hits. I take it you don’t want me concentrating on stolen bicycles and local shoplifters?’
    ‘No. Just major crimes for now. If things get uncomfortable, abandon ship. I don’t want to compromise you – but only because, if you get banged up for aiding and abetting, you won’t get the chance to see my new, improved golf swing in a couple of weeks.’
    He laughed. ‘It’s a big ask. It might take me a couple of days.’
    ‘Understood.’
    ‘Depends when I can get some alone time.’
    ‘Whenever you can, Task.’
    I thanked him, hung up, and went back to Craw’s file.

5
    Inserted into a plastic sleeve taped to the back of the file was a plain DVD with