‘And it wasn’t just for the intellectual exercise this time,’ Foster said, taking a swallow of whisky and feeling it hit much harder than it would normally.
‘He cracked some government mainframe. Got into their satellite systems, managed to change the direction of one of the satellites.’ Megan paused. ‘It caused a communications blackout that could have been dangerous — military repercussions.’
‘You computer types might be clever, but you’re not very smart, are you?’ Foster said. ‘I bet they had him for breakfast.’
Megan lifted her chin in acknowledgement. ‘He was put in a Young Offenders’ Institution for two years.’
Foster knew about Young Offenders’ Institutions: they could take a boy apart piece by piece and reconstruct him into something his own mother wouldn’t recognise.
‘I can’t begin to explain how devastating it was for my mother and me,’ Megan said. ‘Mum wasn’t strong — after Dad died, we looked to Gareth for everything — and when he went away, she fell apart.’
‘You can’t have been more than a toddler,’ Foster said.
‘I was six years old. I had to take over from Gareth as carer — Mum couldn’t cope. But I didn’t really know how to help. I was too young to understand depression. I was even less well equipped to understand how that place changed Gareth.’
Foster nodded; it was as he had thought.
‘I thought it was bad when they put him away; it was worse when he came back.’
‘Drugs?’ he asked.
Her eyebrow twitched into a momentary frown. ‘He used amphetamines to keep awake, nootropics to enhance memory, weed to chill.’ The names seem to come easily to her, and Foster wondered how much of Megan’s web surfing was drug-enhanced. ‘But what happened to Gareth wasn’t chemically induced,’ she went on. ‘It was in here.’ She tapped her chest, just over her heart. The frown returned and she stared into her whisky before taking a sip. Her hand was shaking.
‘When he got out, the government offered him a job — working on systems security.’ She smiled bitterly. ‘Ironic, huh? He turned them down — he said it was the government fucked him up, and he wasn’t about to start helping them.’ She looked hurt and confused and bewildered. ‘They gave him a chance and he was so messed up, couldn’t take it.’
The doorbell rang and Megan jumped. Foster checked his watch: nine-thirty. His sitting-room looked out onto a small concreted back yard and a high brick wall. He saw Megan’s gaze stray to the window. There were two possibilities: police business — or Doran. He placed his glass on the floor beside him and got up, gesturing with the flat of his hand for Megan to stay put. At the door of his flat, he could hear nothing, so he turned off the light and opened the door fast, keeping behind and to the side of it, using it as a shield.
The hall was empty.
The doorbell rang again, longer this time and with a couple of extra spurts at the end. It was dark, and the broken security light meant that he couldn’t even see the silhouette of the caller, to gauge height and potential threat.
He crept to the end of the hall and the figure on the doorstep shifted their weight. He saw no more than a vague form behind the glass. He had no choice — he went to the door and called, ‘Who is it?’
‘Open up, Foster, for God’s sake! It’s bucketing down.’ It was Hart.
Foster opened the door, trying to decide what he was going to tell her.
‘Where the hell have you been?’ she demanded.
‘Here.’
‘Well, why don’t you answer your damn phone?’
He thought guiltily of the phone call he had left unanswered.
‘And your mobile’s switched off.’
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Is it urgent?’
‘Let me in and I’ll tell you.’ The wind, gusting in bursts, whipped her hair around her face and sent rain in spatters against her raincoat. He realised he was gripping the door, effectively forming a barrier to her.
‘Naomi—’ He really didn’t know what to tell her. His shoulders sagged and he said, ‘Ah, bollocks.’
‘You know, I usually get a better reception than this,’ Hart said, ducking her head against a blast of rain-soaked wind on the back of her neck.
Foster glanced over his shoulder. Hart caught the gesture and said, ‘Oh, right. I’m interrupting.’
‘It’s not what you think,’ Foster said, opening the door wide. She stepped in out of the rain, shaking water from her hair.
‘Let me guess,’ she said, evidently enjoying his discomfort. ‘Kieran Jago’s PA came over to kiss and make up.’
He winced. ‘It’s more complicated than that.’
She puzzled over this for a moment, then seemed to decide that the statement was indecipherable. ‘Sorry to drag you away, from . . . whatever it is, but we’ve had a possible sighting of Megan. The boss thinks she’s more likely to talk to you.’
‘He’s not wrong.’
‘And I was so nice to her . . .’ She caught something in his expression and stopped. He jerked his head in the direction of his flat door and followed her through his narrow hallway into the sitting-room.
‘Megan.’ It was hard to gauge from her tone what Hart was thinking, but her hand went to her hair. As far as Foster was concerned, she had nothing to worry about: Megan was a good-looking woman, but even wet through, Naomi Hart had the edge on her.
Megan looked relaxed, she sat back, one arm resting along the backrest of the sofa, an amused expression on her face. ‘Am I in the way?’ she asked. ‘’Cos, you know, I could leave.’ The openness, the vulnerability she had allowed Foster to see was gone.
Hart regained her composure and matched Megan’s cool tone. ‘We’ve been looking all over Liverpool for you, and all the time you were here. In Sergeant Foster’s flat.’ Foster heard the accusation in her voice.
‘She was here when I got back. She wants us to try again with Doran,’ he said.
‘There’s no way Rickman would agree to that,’ Hart said.
Megan looked up at him and tilted her head as if to say, ‘You see why I came to you and not the rest?’
Foster switched his attention to Hart. ‘Wait till you hear what she’s got to say.’
Megan gave a short laugh but refused to talk.
‘O-kay,’ Foster said. ‘I’ll tell her, shall I?’
‘No.’ Hart took off her wet coat and draped it over the coffee table. ‘I want to hear this from Megan.’ She sat at the far end of the sofa and folded her hands in her lap with polite interest. ‘Only — can you give us a brief character summary, first?’
‘I don’t know what you’re driving at,’ Megan said, offended.
‘You’re hard to keep track of,’ Hart explained. ‘I mean, you change personalities like changing a hat. You’ll play the innocent or the flirt, the lonely housewife or the hard-nosed journo — whatever gets you what you need.’
‘The roles I adopt are functional,’ Megan said. ‘I know who I am.’
Hart spread her hands. ‘Do tell!’
Megan flipped her a contemptuous look. ‘I don’t have to explain myself to you,’ she said.
‘You seemed to be doing all right with Sergeant Foster, though.’
Megan looked away from her, an angry smile on her face.
‘He’d’ve been pissed off, finding you on his doorstep,’ Hart went on. ‘Only way to get around him would be to play the vulnerability card. What was it? Lonely orphan? Kindred souls?’
‘That’s enough.’ Foster saw Hart’s surprise at his annoyance. She didn’t know how close she had come to the truth — how could she? Nevertheless, he felt stung by her words.
‘Don’t tell me she got to you,’ Hart said.
Megan glanced from one to the other. ‘You’re letting him down, Constable.’ Her expression softened into amusement. ‘He’s supposed to be the one with all the snide remarks.’
‘I’m clocking twelve hours a day, on average,’ Hart said. ‘This particular twelve-hour day,
I’ve spent running around like an idiot, looking for you. I’m cold, and I’m wet, and I’m tired. You’ve messed us about from the start. Tying up police time, selling us one line after another. Playing your tedious mind games. We’re trying to find Sara’s killer, Megan — your friend’s killer. You’re making our job harder. Worse than that — you seem to think it’s a huge joke. So, forgive me if I’m not playing my role to your satisfaction — I can’t turn it on and off the way you can.’
Stung, Megan snapped to an upright position, ready to argue. Hart exhaled impatiently and Foster decided to take control. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘Like I said, I’m not one of your marks.’ Megan raised an eyebrow and he forged ahead, determined to get her back to where they left off.
‘Just to bring you up to speed, Naomi — Megan’s brother, Gareth, got caught hacking back in the eighties. The Youth Offenders’ Institute mangled him a bit and he came out bitter and hard. Is that about the size of it?’
Megan seemed offended by his assessment, she looked at him round-eyed and made no reply.
‘What?’ he demanded.
‘I thought that was a private conversation,’ Megan said.
‘I might be a sucker for a vulnerable woman,’ he said with a sly glance at Hart, ‘but I’m not stupid. I want a witness to this.’
Megan seemed to be conducting an internal argument. She stared at him, apparently undecided whether to tell him the rest or walk out.
Chapter Thirty-nine
‘Gareth used to baby-sit for Patrick Doran — their eldest child — Maura,’ Megan said.
They had called a truce over whisky and dry crackers, which was all Foster could find in the cupboard.
‘Doran treated my brother like family. Gareth was nineteen years old, studying programming part-time at Liverpool Polytechnic, as it was then. Doran had started in business a year or so earlier — security work to begin with — but he saw the potential of the electronics market and expanded into burglar alarm systems, CCTV and corporate surveillance work.
‘Doran has a way of finding kids like Gareth: vulnerable, impressionable — easy to manipulate. He knew all about Gareth’s history — said it didn’t matter. “New opportunities, new life”, he said.’
‘How very liberal-minded of him,’ Hart commented. Foster had turned the TV chair around to the sofa, and Hart had taken it, facing Megan, openly sizing her up, and he was struck by how typical this was of her — meeting life head-on: he admired her for it, it matched his own philosophy.
‘Until then, Gareth had been earning one-fifty an hour plus tips in a bar. He hated it — long hours and no time to tinker with his computer. Doran’s job offer seemed like a dream ticket: a chance to learn about the new technology at double what he was getting in the bar. Doran paid extra for “special projects”.’
‘What were these “special projects”?’ Foster asked.
Megan put down the whisky glass she had been nursing for the past ten minutes as though she had discovered a worm in the dregs. ‘Hacking,’ she said. ‘He wanted information from competitors’ systems — potential clients, mostly. Doran would put in a more competitive bid and pinch the contracts from under the oppositions’ noses.’ She shrugged. ‘Standard cut-throat business practice.
‘Gareth adored Patrick Doran — you have to remember our father died when Gareth was fourteen — Doran seemed to really take an interest and Gareth responded to that.’ She sighed. ‘I don’t know if he was showing off or just shouting for more attention, but Gareth told Doran he could infect the rivals’ computers with a virus — slow them down, weaken them — even programme them to relay sensitive information to Doran’s system.’
‘Someone twigged?’ Foster asked.
‘No!’ she seemed outraged by the suggestion. ‘Gareth was too damn smart for the plodding systems analysts the other firms employed.’
Foster waited and she went on, ‘They could have cleaned up: always having the jump on the other guy; slowing their systems so they haemorrhaged cash till there was nothing left. But Doran is greedy; he saw an account that was already on a rival firm’s books and he wanted a piece of it — if that meant stealing it, what did he care?
‘It was a money run — one of the big supermarket chains — coming up to Christmas, you’re talking big money. They had the route, the names of the delivery team, times of day. All of it. Doran sent a hand-picked team of his own. They moved in — knew exactly when and where to hit them — but it was messy. The rival’s crew fought back — hard. They nearly didn’t get away.’
‘You sound all disapproving,’ Hart said, and Megan smiled bitterly.
‘Unlike computer fraud, armed robbery isn’t a bloodless crime.’
‘Tell that to Sara Geddes.’
Foster shot Hart a warning look. He had heard more from Megan in the last hour than she had told them in two nights, and he didn’t want her to clam up just because Naomi Hart couldn’t get a hold on her temper.
Hart got the message. She sighed, sat back and took a swallow of whisky, leaving the questioning to Foster.
‘When was this robbery — do you know?’
‘1989 — that was when Gareth got deep into Doran’s murky world.’
‘What are we talking about?’ he asked. ‘More armed robberies?’
She shook her head. ‘Doran was scared off by the near-miss with the money run. He went for softer targets after that: point of delivery, private addresses. Burglary, mostly. This went on for months. Then Gareth found a big account on a competitor’s books, providing security at a diamond dealers’ event. Scores of them were scheduled to attend, buying and selling millions of pounds-worth of diamonds.’
Foster frowned. ‘I wasn’t in the job, then, but I think I’d remember a robbery on that scale.’
‘I told you,’ Megan said, irritated by the interruption, ‘Doran went for soft targets — he didn’t target the event organiser. The dealers had each donated an amount towards security — he picked one of them out from the list of contributors.’
Foster felt a prickling of unease: this was beginning to sound horribly familiar.
‘Mr and Mrs Orr, an elderly couple running a family business,’ Megan went on. ‘They lived in West Kirby. Their shop was in Liverpool, but the event was taking place in Shrewsbury. They were sure to take their day’s purchases home with them. By this time, Gareth was getting a share from the robberies. The greater his involvement, the bigger the share.’
‘So he wasn’t just giving Doran info?’ Foster asked.
‘Alarm boxes could be tricky, even then,’ she explained. ‘If they needed Gareth to get them inside, he was paid extra.’
Foster felt another stab of recognition. ‘And Gareth was called in to get them inside the jeweller’s house.’
She nodded. ‘He disabled the alarm. Normally he would go home at that point, but Doran was worried there might be more gadgetry inside — an alarm on the safe or something.’
‘Doran was there?’
‘Doran and John Warrender, his chief of security — there are some things he doesn’t trust to the lower forms of life in his business.’
‘1989,’ Foster repeated. He glanced at Hart, who seemed to have mellowed over her whisky, and was listening intently. ‘Warrender was still police, then, wasn’t he?’
‘He quit in 1990, I think,’ Hart said.
So, John Warrender had been moonlighting for Doran well before his retirement — committing robberies at night and no doubt investigating them in the day. Megan’s suspicion of the police apparently had some foundation.
‘They should have been straight in and out,’ Megan told them. ‘They had an electronics expert, Doran was an experienced safe-cracker, and he’d even brought along a cop, in case anyone turned up asking awkward questions. The couple were safely tucked up in bed for the night, but they didn’t reckon on Mr Orr’s prostate trouble. He got up in the night, saw a light on downstairs and went to investigate.’
* * *
‘I loo
ked into the old man’s face,’ Gareth told her years later, ‘and I thought, Why am I even here?’ It would be a long time before he began to understand the gradual accumulation of wrong moves and bad choices, the faltering steps that led to a giant stride into the nightmare that followed.
It took just minutes to find and crack the safe, embedded in the wall behind some books on a shelf in the dining-room. The safe was empty, except for a few valuables and documents. Doran turned on the old man, furious.
‘Where are the stones?’ he demanded.
The old man shook his head and a lock of silky white hair fell into his eyes. His face was smooth, clean-shaven and he had the delicate colouring some people acquire in old age; powdery white, but with a hint of pink, high in his cheeks. His nose was straight and thin as a blade.
Doran sent Warrender upstairs to keep the old woman quiet while he and Gareth tied the old man to a chair. Doran made Gareth bring the dining chair into the hall, so that Mr Orr’s wife would hear them. Gareth placed the chair on the waxed wood floor and stood back, while Doran did the rest. He remembered the warm rum colour of aged wood all around them, the smell of wax polish and the slow tick of a grandfather clock.
Gareth found his gaze drawn to the man’s pyjamas: dark blue with white piping around the collar. The detail seemed unbearably poignant and Gareth suddenly wanted to cry.
‘Where are the stones?’ Doran repeated.
The old man shook his head and Doran hit him hard in the face. Blood spurted from the old man’s lip and Gareth was startled to feel some of it spatter, warm on his face.
‘Mr Doran—’
Doran wheeled on him. ‘You fucking idiot. Keep your mouth shut.’
He had said Doran’s name, and it could not be unsaid. Gareth blinked and stood still, afraid to attract Doran’s attention again. He had identified them all, and Doran’s fury at him was transferred to the old man.
Doran turned back to the old man. ‘I asked you a question. Don’t make me repeat myself.’
SEE HER DIE a totally gripping mystery thriller (Detective Jeff Rickman Book 2) Page 27