SEE HER DIE a totally gripping mystery thriller (Detective Jeff Rickman Book 2)

by MARGARET MURPHY

  ‘Minimalist is my place,’ Hart said, slipping off her jacket and flopping into the easy chair. ‘What you’ve got is a cave.’

  ‘You’re ganging up on me, now,’ Foster protested, but he was enjoying himself.

  Megan went through to her bedroom and returned minus her fleece jacket. ‘Coffee?’ she asked.

  Hart nodded, but Foster said, ‘Any chance of a brew?’

  He followed her through to the kitchen and stood at the entrance to observe her. She worked with quick efficiency, sure of where everything was, focused on the task.

  ‘So,’ he said, as she poured hot water into the mugs, ‘why would anyone want to be invisible?’

  ‘Where’ve you been the last few days?’ Megan asked. ‘My friend is dead — her killer is after me.’

  ‘We offered—’

  ‘Come off it, Sergeant! You must have seen dozens of cases like this: someone comes forward with information, you say you’ll protect them. Death threats follow, damage to property, physical violence — lives made hell because they trusted their safety to the law. Well — news flash — you can’t stop evil people with a warning or an Anti-social Behaviour Order. You might as well use a sticking plaster to fix a slashed artery.’

  Foster was momentarily at a loss for words. She handed him his mug of tea and carried the coffee through for herself and Hart.

  Foster frowned, annoyed with himself. As Hart took her mug of coffee, he saw mischief in her eye, and rallied to counterattack. ‘Nice try,’ he said. ‘Only you’re not exactly Mother Teresa yourself, are you? Don’t you think you hurt people with your little scams?’

  Megan turned to him and he saw an ocean of turmoil in her eyes. ‘I’m not even a blip on the radar compared with Doran. You don’t know what he’s capable of,’ she said, her voice roughened with emotion.

  ‘I’m listening.’ Foster glanced at Hart. ‘We both are. But you’ve got to stop pissing about with all this tax-dodging crap and give us something we can use against him.’

  ‘I will,’ she said, taking a seat on the sofa. ‘I’ll get you everything you need. I just — I don’t have everything in place, yet.’

  ‘Let us investigate,’ Hart said. ‘If it’s there, we’ll find the evidence.’

  Megan took a sip of hot coffee. ‘It’s not that simple.’

  Foster had a sudden insight. ‘He really messed with you, didn’t he? This isn’t one of your crusades — Megan’s personal war against evil — Supergeek gets her guy. Doran messed with you or your family.’

  Megan’s hand jerked and hot coffee slopped out of the mug, scalding her hand. She cursed, slamming the mug down onto the table and stood up. ‘You know the attraction of invisibility? This.’ She opened her arms, taking in the sweep of the room, the two of them, the situation she found herself in.

  ‘If I screw up, it’s only me I need to worry about. I can walk away free and clear. Turn up somewhere else. New name, new life, no baggage.’

  ‘There’s always baggage, Megan,’ Hart said. ‘We lug it around with us no matter how far we run.’

  ‘She right about that, you know,’ Foster said. ‘And from what you’ve told us so far, you screwed up big time, letting Doran track you down, involving Sara.’

  ‘Getting Sara killed?’ She looked away from him as if it hurt too much to sustain eye contact.

  Foster wasn’t in the mood to indulge her self-pity. ‘Point is, you screwed up, and you’re still here.’

  She made no reply.

  Foster pushed a little harder. ‘All this crap about freedom: no past. No ties. I bet you’ve got that shoebox of golden memories stashed somewhere safe, though, haven’t you?’

  The anger seemed to light her up like a pulse of energy. ‘Yes, I have.’ She looked into his face, her eyes flashing. ‘Question is, where do you hide your store of childhood reminiscences, Foster?’

  She went through to the kitchen and they heard the tap running.

  ‘What was that about? Hart asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ Foster said. ‘She’s just firing buckshot, hoping to hit something.’ He snatched up a newspaper lying on the coffee table and sat on the sofa. Megan returned and wiped up the coffee spill, then sat in brooding silence a few feet from Foster.

  You had to keep on at it, didn’t you, Lee? He berated himself. You had to let her know you could read her. Didn’t think she was just as sharp, did you? He thought he had buried his past, covering his vulnerability with jokes and superficiality, but Megan had seen through the shallows into the depths. When the phone rang, all three of them jumped.

  Megan picked up and Foster flicked down a corner of his paper to watch. Hart widened her eyes at him. The question was implicit in her look: What the hell is going on?

  Foster shook his head and returned his attention to Megan.

  ‘For you,’ Megan said, placing the receiver on the table next to the phone.

  ‘They’ve checked out the bank account numbers you gave us,’ he said after a brief conversation. ‘There’s 1.32 million and some change in them.’ He was shaken by the news: some part of him actually thought that Megan was a fantasist, that she had been lying to them and they would find that the ‘account numbers’ she had given them were as bogus as the Visa card number embossed on the front of the card.

  Megan tilted her head. ‘Did you doubt me, Sergeant?’ She asked, the hint of a smile playing on her lips, her good humour apparently restored by his discomfort.

  She disappeared for a moment and returned with a DVD. ‘This contains an image of Doran’s network, including his ‘black book’ accounting. Compare it with his tax returns and you’ll see a big disparity,’ Megan said. ‘He’s working way under the tax radar on a lot of his jobs.’

  Foster took the disk and then skimmed it to Hart, who caught it neatly. ‘Tax dodging,’ he repeated. ‘You told us you had more.’

  ‘Like I said, it needs more work. And I’ve got to keep something back to keep you interested.’

  ‘There’s a word for that,’ Foster said. ‘Obstruction. Think if we searched the rest of the flat we’d find more of those?’

  ‘I could make you go through the tedious and time-wasting process of obtaining a warrant,’ she said. ‘But I want Doran as much as you do. Believe me, you’ll get your proof. In the meantime—’ She waved her arm in a grand sweep. ‘Be my guest.’ As she walked out of the room, she placed a hand on Foster’s shoulder and he felt the heat of it through his shirt. ‘Oh,’ she said softly, ‘I was forgetting — you already are.’

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Their search of Megan Ward’s flat turned up nothing. She worked on her laptop computer in the sitting-room, pretending not to notice as Foster and Hart turned out drawers and looked under furniture. She didn’t even seem to mind when Foster asked her to move from her chair so that he could check the lining for hidden disks.

  ‘All finished, now?’ she asked when he set the chair upright again.

  ‘You’re not making any friends messing us about like this, Megan,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t need friends, Sergeant,’ she said. ‘Thanks all the same.’ She perched on an arm of the chair and continued working on her computer.

  Foster looked over her shoulder as she clicked though several pages of an internet website. Something struck him as odd. It took him a few moments to work it out: there were no connectors going into or out of the sockets at the back of her computer.

  ‘What?’ she asked.

  ‘I thought you had to connect to a phone-line to get onto the Net,’ Foster said.

  ‘You do. And I am.’ He frowned and she added, ‘It’s WiFi.’

  ‘Now I know you’re winding me up,’ he said.

  ‘I’m not. It’s wireless. Uses radio waves to pick up a broadband connection.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Hart stood watching them from the kitchen door. ‘Whose broadband connection? One of the offices downstairs?’

  Foster saw a twinkle of amusement in Megan’s eye. It lit up her rather s
olemn face, giving it an animation he found attractive. ‘In theory, it could be any connection up to a fifty-metre radius — it depends on the strength of the signal,’ she said. ‘Of course, in theory, their firewall would protect them — or if they had any computer savvy, they’d have a scrambler to prevent parasites piggy-backing on their bandwidth.’

  ‘In theory . . .’ Hart repeated, with a smile.

  ‘Girl talk?’ Foster asked, irritated and a little humiliated that he had understood barely one word in three of the exchange.

  The women turned on him, eyes wide, ready for battle and Foster held up both hands defensively. ‘I’m apologising,’ he said. ‘Unreserved apologies, okay? Just don’t suck the life-blood out of my bank account and blacklist my credit rating, okay?’

  Megan was surprised into laughter and Foster tried the smile. She responded and Hart rolled her eyes.

  ‘How did you get into this, then?’ Foster asked, flopping onto the sofa, still smiling.

  Megan shrugged. ‘Computing degree.’

  ‘I meant the fraud.’

  She thought for a moment. ‘I discovered that I didn’t need to work for a living.’

  ‘It’s no kind of life, though, is it?’ Foster said. ‘Looking over your shoulder all the time. No friends, no family, no roots.’

  ‘I have friends,’ she said evenly, ‘And only vegetables need roots — I like my mobility.’

  Foster noticed she didn’t reply to his comment about family. ‘Where are your friends now?’ he asked.

  ‘My friends are on the Net.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘“Virtual” friends. Ever wonder how much of what they tell you is true?’

  She shrugged. ‘It’s true in the context of the Web. Not some neat little story somebody else made up for them.’

  ‘But it’s not real,’ Hart said. She was still at the kitchen door, leaning against the frame, her arms folded.

  ‘As real as any of the stories people make up about us.’ Megan countered. ‘It’s what you do that matters, not what you appear to be.’

  ‘What you do,’ Foster said, ‘is steal other people’s identities.’

  ‘I never stole a living person’s identity.’

  ‘You stole living people’s money.’

  ‘Most of them didn’t even notice it was gone.’

  ‘Doran did.’

  She lifted one shoulder. ‘The money doesn’t belong to him.’

  Foster smiled. ‘Doesn’t belong to you, either.’

  ‘And Doran is a murdering bastard.’

  ‘You say.’

  Megan held Foster’s gaze, her grey eyes unreadable. ‘I’ll prove it.’

  ‘Would that be anytime soon?’ Foster asked. ‘Because I do have a life, you know, and I’d like to get back to it this millennium.’

  ‘I gave you a million and a quarter pounds in unpaid taxes,’ Megan said.

  Foster snorted. ‘You know what happens to men like Doran who don’t pay their taxes, Megan? They bargain their way out, pay a percentage and the tax man goes away happy.’

  ‘Sarge . . .’ Hart seemed to think he was taking things too far, but Foster was unwilling to let it go.

  ‘I’d like to know how Mystic Meg here is going to prove that Doran is a murderer. I mean why are we hanging on her every word? Why are we playing by her rules when we don’t even know who she is?’

  Foster saw something flare in Megan’s eyes.

  ‘It’s late,’ Hart said, ‘and we’re all a bit frayed round the edges. We can talk about this in the morning, but we won’t get anywhere arguing about it tonight.’

  ‘She says she wants to catch Sara’s killer, why doesn’t she get on with it?’

  Hart tilted her head. ‘He’s got a point. How about it, Megan?’ she said. ‘Why don’t you just tell us what else you’ve got on Doran?’

  ‘I told you—’

  Foster saw a muscle jump in Megan’s jaw. ‘Oh, yeah,’ he said, insincerity oozing from every pore. ‘You’ll let us know in your own good time. Meanwhile a murderer walks free. You’re yanking our chains — admit it.’

  ‘It’s . . . I’m not ready, yet,’ Megan said, sounding uncharacteristically unsure of herself. ‘I told you, I need to . . . to gather more information.’

  ‘Bullshit.’ Foster saw the look of warning on Hart’s face, but Megan was rattled, and he intended to use his advantage. He took a step towards her and said, ‘What is this, Megan? Revenge?’ He stared into her slate-grey eyes. ‘Did he do you and ditch you?’

  Megan stood up. Her laptop slid off her lap and bounced on the chair cushion, tipping onto its side. ‘You want to know who I am?’ She was angry, her skin pale except for two bright spots of colour high on her cheekbones. ‘You want a summary?’

  Foster felt a thrill of anticipatory excitement.

  ‘I’m not so easy to précis. I don’t have a life CV for you to read and tick the boxes. You see me. What do you say I am?’

  She was shifting the focus back onto him, but he was onto her; he’d used the trick often enough himself. ‘Why ask me?’ he said. ‘Did you forget to leave a reminder on the fridge door, or something?’

  Hart covered a smile. Megan seemed ready to retaliate, but then she caught herself, and the anger dissipated.

  ‘Is that what you do?’ she asked, coolly.

  Foster got up and headed for the kitchen. ‘I need a brew,’ he said. ‘She does my head in.’

  Hart moved out of his way, into the body of the room.

  After half a minute’s silence, during which Foster rattled crockery and filled the kettle, Megan said, ‘He doesn’t like me, much, does he?’

  Hart said, ‘How can you like or dislike a shadow?’

  She sighed and bent to pick up her laptop. ‘Don’t you start.’

  ‘I’m just saying—’

  ‘I like being invisible,’ she interrupted.

  ‘I get that,’ Hart said. ‘I just don’t get why.’

  ‘I like the freedom it gives me. We all do it, one way or another. We all put on different faces.’

  ‘Maybe, but we don’t change our names and pretend to be something we’re not.’

  ‘Of course you do,’ Megan said. ‘You pretend you don’t see him watching you. He hides behind that big smile, pretending he doesn’t give a shit.’

  Eavesdropping in the kitchen, Foster felt a prickle of discomfort.

  ‘Sergeant Foster is a work colleague.’ He heard the carefully neutral tone.

  ‘Because that’s as close as you allow him,’ Megan said.

  Oh, what? ‘How come your cloak of invisibility failed with Doran?’ he demanded, coming back into the room.

  Megan raised her eyebrows. ‘What makes you think it did?’

  ‘How else would Sara end up dead?’

  She chewed her lower lip while she decided how to answer. ‘I got complacent,’ she said after a while. ‘Doran’s computer security was so sloppy I underestimated him. I should’ve used a laptop, changed locations regularly, used WiFi, but I’m more of a hi-tech grifter than a dedicated hacker.’

  Foster appeared in the doorway with a fresh cup of tea in his hand. ‘Don’t be so modest,’ he said. ‘You knew how to wipe out your own computer records.’

  ‘The logic bomb was you, wasn’t it?’ Hart asked.

  She nodded.

  ‘And you locked Doran out of his own system.’

  She tilted her head, modestly declining the compliment. ‘Easy when you know how.’

  ‘And you stole info from his computer network and a sizeable wadge of money from him,’ Foster added.

  ‘I do my bit for society.’ She caught his look and laughed, ‘Oh, don’t look at me that way! Don’t expect me to believe you’re the moralistic type.’

  Foster smiled. ‘I was just trying to work out how you did it, not the rights and wrongs of it.’

  ‘It wasn’t that hard.’

  Foster gave her an incredulous look and she said, ‘I’m not being modest. Anyone wit
h a basic competence in programming could do it.’

  ‘So, you see yourself as a modern-day Robin Hood, do you?’

  ‘I don’t need that kind of recognition,’ she said, amused. ‘I keep telling you — I don’t like to be recognised at all.’

  * * *

  Hart was talking on her mobile when Foster staggered into the sitting-room at nine-thirty a.m. the next morning. She had replaced him on duty at six-thirty, and he had caught three hours of dream-fevered rest, waking stupefied and grumpy.

  ‘Is there no coffee on?’ he demanded. Hart showed him two fingers and continued her conversation.

  Foster blundered into the kitchen and opened and closed doors at random until he found the coffee. There was no cereal, but he found half a loaf of bread and put a couple of slices in the toaster while he washed the mugs from the night before and made coffee.

  He brought their breakfast through just as Hart finished her call. She left him alone until he had finished his first round.

  ‘Feel better now?’ she asked, looking at him over the rim of her coffee cup.

  ‘I feel like the hangover after a three-day bender,’ Foster said. ‘Except I can remember every miserable moment. Who was on the phone?’

  ‘I got Reidy to do a bit of digging for me.’ Hart picked up her notebook from the coffee table.

  Foster took a second slice of toast and sat in the armchair to drink his double strength coffee.

  ‘Doran was an enforcer with the rag-tag army of lefties who ruled Liverpool City Council in the nineteen-eighties,’ Hart said.

  ‘I remember,’ Foster said. ‘There was that speech by Kinnock — the shame of redundancy notices being sent around the city by taxicab. Only decent speech he ever made, if you ask me.’

  Hart looked at him blankly.

  ‘Come on, Naomi,’ he said. ‘You must remember being sent home from school — half the teachers were sacked to try and make the books balance after the government capped the rates.’

  ‘I’d be about eight years old, Lee,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t big on politics in those days. I was more into Star Wars action figures and Duran Duran.’

  Foster eyed her with frank admiration and she said, ‘What?’