Chapter 36

Kelly walked into the incident room at Eden House, and went straight to the coffee machine. They’d clubbed together to buy a fancy De’Longhi model that frothed milk as well as made the best coffee. Between around fifteen of them who worked at the serious crime unit full time, it had been a bargain and worth every penny. The only problem was that there was always someone stood waiting. It was that good. The other problem was that now Kelly drank around five cups of coffee per day. She’d started using sweetener instead of spoonfuls of sugar, though.

‘Boss, I think we need to think about placing a cordon around the Laurie Fell estate. A video has been posted online, showing some kind of party there over the weekend, and some journos have begun gathering there.’

‘Really? Can I see it?’

‘There are loads of them,’ Rob said, swinging round on his chair. ‘This will really stick in the knife. The Kennedy-Craigs are getting sick of reporters outside their residence in London too, and Downing Street, as well as the hospital,’ Rob added.

‘That bad?’ Kelly asked. The coffee machine was free. She grabbed a cup and set it up, slipping in a pod. She always chose the colour she fancied, rather than what combination of roast was actually inside the thing. Today it was red. The milk compartment bubbled and spat.

‘Come and have a look. It’s on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Lord Reilly has over one hundred and fifty thousand followers on Twitter, and Kennedy-Craig, though no Alan Sugar, has a healthy two million. There’s a holy battle raging, and all the Facebook Karens are taking their bras off.’

Kelly hit him playfully round the head.

‘Keyboard warriors?’ Kate chipped in. It was a joke, but carried with it a heavy dose of caution. Opinions online, hate and rage, could swing public opinion. Especially against the police. They knew that first-hand. Words, even digital ones, out there in the ether, were now as dangerous as knives. Monitoring social media was something that Kelly did on every case now, as a matter of course.

She grabbed a chair with her free hand and sat next to Rob, who started a video clip. It was taken from the shore of a lake, and the filming was directed towards a large house. She could tell it was large because all the windows were lit, and there were dozens of them. It looked clandestine, as if the taker of the phone footage wasn’t invited to the party.

‘Dan and Emma have seen it and say it’s definitely Laurie Fell. The house that sits on Ullswater, where Kennedy-Craig was staying,’ Rob said.

Kelly looked across at Emma, who nodded.