‘Something back there just doesn’t add up,’ he said.

Felicia looked up. ‘With Lilly Davies or the care centre?’

‘With Lilly. Archer was injured on the job.’

‘Yeah?’

‘So when cops are injured in the line of duty, not only do they get insurance money, but the Police Mutual Benevolent Association steps in. They help the families out financially. Granted, it’s nothing mind-blowing, but it’s enough to live comfortably. Plus, Lilly should be getting a partial pension from the British Army.’

‘Again, so what?’

‘So where is all the money? She lives in an old house, she drives an old beater, she has to work as a waitress just to make ends meet, and even still, she can’t afford for her kids to play hockey or figure-skate. White Rock may be nice, but it sure as hell isn’t expensive like West Vancouver or Kitsilano. She should be doing fine financially.’

Felicia looked out the window. ‘Maybe she’s made some bad business decisions or investments.’

‘I want to know why. Call up the land title office. See if she owns that house. And then call the PMBA. I want to see what kind of funds she’s getting.’

‘If they’ll tell us – that’s confidential information.’

‘I know the secretary-treasurer. She can find that information. Just tell her it’s me and that these are exigent circumstances.’

‘You say everything is exigent.’

‘If a guy blowing up the city isn’t pressing enough, the courts can hang me for it. Besides, our bomber has been visiting Archer. They’re connected. Make the call.’

Felicia agreed. She took out her cell and began dialling, and Striker increased their speed to one hundred and forty K per hour. By the time they had reached the Knight Street Bridge, Felicia was still on the cell and running names on the laptop.

Several kilometres later, she finished the phone call. She hung up and turned slightly in her seat to face him. ‘Okay, you were right about the land title. Lilly rents the place. The house is actually owned by a family that rents a half-dozen other houses in the neighbourhood.’

‘Any crime connections?’

‘No, the family is clean. But that’s not the interesting part. The interesting part is the pension and the PMBA money – Lilly’s only getting half of it.’

‘Half?’

‘The rest of it is going overseas. To the UK.’

Striker stopped hard at a red light on Broadway and looked at her. ‘You got to be kidding me.’

‘A first wife, by the sounds of it. And a first family.’

‘He has other kids?’

‘Two names are listed.’

‘Is one of them Tom?’

Felicia shook her head. ‘No. Oliver and Molly.’

‘A boy and a girl,’ Striker mused. ‘Just like our bombers . . . If Archer had kids real young, these could be them. What’s their surname?’

‘They took their mother’s maiden name – Howell.’

‘Oliver Howell and Molly Howell,’ Striker said. ‘It sounds so ordinary.’ He gave Felicia a queer look. ‘Did you run a full search on the names?’

‘On Oliver and Molly Howell? Of course. On all the systems. There’s nothing.’

He nodded absently. ‘What about Tom Atkins?’

‘Negative too.’

Striker swore. ‘I know I’ve heard that name somewhere before. Run another search. Hell, Google it.’

Felicia started up the web browser and performed the search. The very first link on the page was to the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia. She clicked on the link and soon found herself reading up on the name Tom Atkins. After a long moment, she let out a sound somewhere between surprise and disbelief.

Striker caught it. ‘What did you find?’

‘A direct hit.’ Felicia summarized the passage. ‘The name Tommy Atkins is a slang term for any soldier in the British Army.’

Striker cocked an eyebrow her way. ‘Are you shitting me?’

She shook her head. ‘In World War One, in the trenches, British soldiers were often referred to as “Tommies”.’

Striker couldn’t believe his ears. ‘The cocky bastard. He’s laughing at us.’

‘So Oliver Howell is Tommy Atkins?’

‘We’re about to find out.’

Striker pressed his foot down hard on the accelerator and the car surged forward just as the light turned green. Their destination was Main Street Headquarters. Striker couldn’t wait to get there. He had a few phone calls to make. First to Interpol, and, failing that, the British Army. If Oliver and Molly Howell were in any way associated with the armed forces, Striker was going to find out.

For the first time since this investigation had started, he felt as if they were on the edge of a major discovery.

One Hundred and Twenty

Feeling like a bag of shit, Harry parked the pickup truck behind Main Street HQ and walked down the lane. Because of the press release, informing the world of his death, he was supposed to lay low till things calmed down.

But he had never been one to sit idly by.

High above, swooping lines of telephone wires crisscrossed the sky, and a drunk from the Empress Hotel was yelling out the top-floor window. Harry ignored the racket, swiped his keycard, and walked inside the south entrance where Stores was located. Ahead of him, a couple of rookie cops were leaving the counter with their new gear – uniforms, bulletproof vests and new holsters. The uniforms meant little to Harry; he was more concerned about the global positioning devices the department owned.

Harry approached the service area. Behind the counter, the desks were overflowing with mounds of supplies and stacks of paperwork. Harry reached out, rang the bell, and waited. After a minute or two, he rang it again.

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah – hold on!’ came the call. ‘We’re unloading back here.’

The caustic tone of the woman’s voice told Harry it was Desiree Wentworth, and he frowned. The Stores clerk was about as sweet as cyanide and just as deadly. Standing only 152 centimetres and weighing in at damn near 118 kilos, there was a reason everyone called her A Street Car Named Desiree.

Harry waited for almost five minutes until she finally rounded the corner. ‘Hot as a fuck in here,’ she said, then eyed him up and down. ‘Harry Eckhart? I thought you were dead.’

‘Long story.’

Desiree didn’t mince words. ‘Well, welcome back to the land of the living. What ya want?’

‘GPS records.’

‘For what?’

He held up the base of the GPS device – the unit he had broken off the Ford cruiser before it had exploded in the A&W parking lot. ‘Found this in the back lane. Not sure if it fell out of my car or someone else’s. Can you check the database?’

Desiree grabbed the device from him, yanking it from his fingers. Harry felt his hands ball into fists. Had any street toad done that, he would have busted their jaw . . . but this was the VPD, and around here you got more flies with honey.

He watched patiently as Desiree searched through the database for the part number. When she located one and cross-referenced it through the system, she found what she was looking for. She didn’t even bother to look up.

‘Not yours.’

‘You sure?’

‘You change your name to Connors? Leave it here. I’ll see that it’s returned.’

Without so much as another word, she approached the front counter and muttered, ‘Closing time.’ She slammed down the window partition, leaving Harry standing there, staring at a grey steel barrier.

He barely noticed. All he could think of was the name she had spoken. Connors . . . that meant David Connors. The man had just been transferred to the Police Standards Section. To Internal. And the thought of it turned Harry cold.

They know, he thought. The department knows.