Free Jokerman by Tim Stevens Page A

then the crumpling of her face.
    ‘He’s an arsehole,’ she whispered. ‘But, God love him, he’s the father of my boy.’
    Purkiss held her with the awkwardness of a stranger, while she punched lightly against his chest in time with her sobs, in frustration more than anger.
    ‘Sometimes the world needs arseholes,’ Purkiss said.
    She wasn’t Kendrick’s next of kin because they’d never been married, but, the hospital had agreed to contact her as the mother of Kendrick’s child in case of any change in his condition. Purkiss gave her his number, and asked for hers.
    ‘So I can let you know when I’ve found the man who did this.’
    She nodded.
    On the way out, he said to the head nurse at the ITU desk: ‘Sorry about the laughter back there.’
    She waved her hand. ‘Happens all the time in here. So much death around.’
    Purkiss left the hospital at a quicker pace then when he’d arrived, because his meeting with Kendrick’s ex-girlfriend had given him an idea.

Fourteen
     
    Vale tipped the contents of the cardboard box onto the dining table. They were back in the Covent Garden safehouse-cum-office.
    Purkiss rummaged through the pile. There were wallets of various sizes and ages, each containing credit cards in an astonishing assortment of names. Passports, too, with several of them once again carefully weathered to look well travelled. He flipped through them just to admire Abby’s handiwork, and shook his head. Each of them contained his photo, but the names, dates of birth and even sometimes nationalities were different.
    Purkiss found fake driver’s licences, National Insurance Number cards, staff ID badges giving him access to banks and military installations. All utterly authentic looking to his eye, and he was used to spotting bogus documentation.
    In addition to her prowess as a computer programmer and hacker, Abby Holt had shown a remarkable talent for forgery. She’d supplied Purkiss with a plethora of fake documents, allowing him to slip into and out of both friendly and hostile countries undetected. What he hadn’t realised was the extent of her efforts. She’d clearly manufactured credentials for a greater range of situations than he’d ever needed to use them in, just in case.
    After Abby’s killing in Tallinn last October, Vale had arranged for her base in Whitechapel, the flat where she maintained her computer networks and did her forging, to be cleared out quietly, while her grieving parents, who’d known nothing of their daughter’s clandestine sideline, had taken care of the flat in Stoke Newington where she lived, disposing of those personal effects of hers they could bear to throw away.
    Purkiss had never asked Vale exactly what he’d found in Abby’s secret hideaway, or what he’d done with it. But, leaving the hospital an hour earlier, he’d been struck by a thought, and had fished out his phone.
    ‘Yes,’ Vale said. ‘I have the young lady’s effects.’
    Keeping the bits and pieces he’d cleaned out of the secret bolthole of someone whom he’d never met before was just the sort of thing Purkiss might have expected Vale to do.
    Purkiss asked Vale to bring along anything that looked like forged ID, but to leave behind the computer equipment and whatever else Vale had bagged. He didn’t need that sort of stuff now, though it might prove useful later.
    The ideal find would be a tax inspector’s identification card, but although Purkiss didn’t find that, he felt a surge of triumph as he picked up the next best thing. A warrant card with a mug shot of Purkiss, identifying him as Detective Inspector Peter Cullen of the Metropolitan Police. The card even had the holographic emblem of authenticity.
    Abby, you’re a diamond , he said silently, as he’d said to her countless times when she’d been alive.
    Vale was watching him. ‘Care to tell me what you have in mind?’
    ‘It’s probably better that I don’t, at this point.’
    Vale nodded. ‘Very well.’ He was