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

by MARGARET MURPHY

  ‘Gareth looked after me, when our father died,’ she went on. ‘Mum couldn’t cope. The Gareth I knew as a child was kind and gentle and caring — he saw that I was fed and clothed, remembered birthdays and thought up ideas for treats. Then he went into the youth offenders’ unit, and it was like someone had flicked a switch.’

  ‘But he’s been in prison, what — nearly fifteen years?’ Foster said. ‘Why the sudden concern?’ He sucked air through his teeth. ‘Sorry — I didn’t mean that to sound so—’

  ‘Brutal?’ She laughed softly. ‘It’s all part of your dubious charm, Sergeant.’ She left a couple of seconds’ silence, then he heard her sigh. ‘I tried to make contact with Gareth in prison, but he wouldn’t see me — never replied to my letters. In the end, I got on with my life, earned a living.’

  ‘Yeah, robbing people blind.’

  ‘Bad blood, Sergeant.’ He heard the smile in her voice. ‘You know, I really didn’t know who Fay Doran was when I first got her order. When I snouted around a bit in her computer files and found Doran’s firm, I was shocked — stunned, even. And of course, I wanted to do something for Gareth. The detention centre took away some of my brother’s humanity, but Doran finished him for good. Gareth didn’t stand a chance once Doran got hold of him.’

  ‘So it is about revenge,’ Foster said, thinking of Tunstall’s remarks in the briefing.

  ‘Not revenge,’ she said ‘Justice. For Gareth, for Mr and Mrs Orr, for Sara — and who knows how many others? Men like Doran don’t stop — ever.’

  He wished he could see her face. ‘What do you want from him, Megan?’

  ‘An admission of guilt. I want him to admit to me that he killed Mrs Orr. I want him to admit that he beat Mr Orr to the point of death. I want to hear it from Patrick Doran that he incited my brother to murder.’

  ‘And how d’you think you’ll get him to do that?’ he asked, hearing the emotion in her voice, knowing for sure that in this, at least, she was sincere. ‘He may be a Catholic, but I’d bet a year’s salary he’s never even confessed it to his priest.’ He recalled their earlier conversation and said, ‘You and Gareth are plotting something, aren’t you?’

  ‘I told you,’ she said, ‘I’ve only seen him twice since he went to prison.’

  She didn’t say they weren’t plotting, though, he thought. ‘He coached you, didn’t he?’ Foster said. She didn’t answer and he kept pushing, determined to get one — one that he could at least half-believe. ‘The stuff you passed on to the Met, stealing Doran’s cash, planting the logic bomb in your computer — that was all down to Gareth, wasn’t it?’

  ‘It’s a lot to get through in two forty-minute visits,’ she said.

  Foster smiled to himself. ‘But when you told him who you wanted to shaft, I’ll bet he found a way. Email, chat rooms, instant messaging — there must be a dozen different ways — I’ll bet you learn fast.’

  Megan laughed, and there was real delight in it. ‘I’m not the only one,’ she said.

  Foster left a silence, then said, ‘Well?’

  Another laugh subdued and self-deprecatory, this time. ‘He wouldn’t help me with Doran,’ she said. ‘Told me to stay the hell away from him.’

  Foster was sceptical. ‘The Fraud Squad reckoned you were just a talented amateur before this lot.’

  ‘Amateur,’ she repeated. ‘I might have to make them regret saying that.’

  ‘How come you got all hi-tech and Mastermind if Gareth wasn’t helping you?’

  ‘Gareth tracked my activities after he told me to lay off Doran. I suppose next to him, I was an amateur. He got in touch — actually, he took control of my entire damn computer — put this ugly great fire-breathing dragon up on my screen. I thought I was going to have a heart attack. Then, he was there — Gareth — his face, anyway. He’d managed to set up a live link: don’t ask me how he got the hardware — I still don’t know, but that’s my Gareth, always resourceful.’ Her voice sounded watery, close to tears.

  ‘And he said he’d help.’

  He heard a choked sound, somewhere between a laugh and a sob. ‘He said I was going to wind up in prison.’ She paused a moment. ‘What was it he called me? A clueless wannahack, leaving a cyber-trail so wide he could follow it blindfold in the dark. He told me to leave it alone, or he’d shut me down. I said I’d go and buy another computer, start with a new identity. I’m afraid I played the guilt card — I wasn’t about to stop, so he had no choice.’

  ‘I knew it.’ Foster slapped the steering wheel in triumph.

  ‘Just so you’re clear, it was under duress,’ she said. ‘He’d have made a cracking teacher, though.’ Unexpectedly, her voice broke, and she coughed, clearing her throat. ‘The upshot? I’m getting better at this all the time.’

  Foster sighed. ‘You know we can’t let you do whatever you’re planning with Doran. Even if he trusted you, my boss wouldn’t risk a civilian being hurt in a sting operation like you’re proposing.’

  ‘You’re not calling the shots,’ she said.

  ‘Look, you said yourself, there could be others on Doran’s casualty list. He’s not gonna think twice about adding you to it.’

  ‘So, I’ll have to be smarter than he is.’

  ‘Bloody hell . . .’ he breathed. He remembered the worried look on Mrs Bentley’s face when she said, ‘He wouldn’t do that — he wouldn’t go off — not without telling me’; and he was finally convinced that Bentley’s mother and Jago could be right — that something bad had happened to Jake Bentley.

  ‘Sara’s stalker?’ he said, knowing he shouldn’t be talking about this to a civilian, especially not to Megan Ward.

  ‘Bentley. What about him?’

  ‘He’s gone missing.’

  ‘Doran?’ she said, at once.

  ‘I don’t know — maybe. The thing is, I don’t want you taking any stupid chances.’

  ‘So you won’t help me?’

  ‘We can’t — he’s too—’

  ‘I don’t care about the police,’ she interrupted. ‘I asked you. Won’t you help me?’

  ‘I can’t. Megan, I’m sorry—’ But she had already gone.

  Chapter Forty-two

  The twins were fractious; the natural consequence of a difficult few days and a weekend treat of burgers and cola at McDonald’s. Declan had taken Frankie’s Game Boy and Frankie was demanding it back. ‘It’s mine!’ he yelled. ‘Give it back!’

  His brother mimicked him, dancing and dodging just out of reach and Frankie turned to his mother to arbitrate. ‘Mum!’

  Fay Doran sighed. ‘Give your brother his Game Boy,’ she said.

  Declan got in a couple more feints before handing it over. ‘You’re rubbish, anyway.’

  ‘You’re rubbish!’ Frankie shouted back, his face red, his hands balled into fists.

  ‘That’s enough,’ Fay said.

  ‘Rubbish,’ Declan muttered as one last parting shot.

  ‘Am not.’

  ‘Right,’ Fay said. ‘Go to your room.’

  ‘But Mum,’ Frankie complained, wide-eyed with the injustice of it, ‘he called me rubbish.’

  ‘I will not act as negotiator in your little war,’ she said, firmly, hearing her own mother’s intonation and even (God help her), the very words her mother would use when she and her brothers and sisters had pushed the boundaries too far. The boys looked at each other, appalled at being banished, each hating the other for having caused their banishment.

  Fay watched them slouch out of the room, uttering dire threats against each other from the corner of their mouths. Maura was on the way in and she held the door open, letting them walk under her arm. A look of understanding passed between the girl and her mother, a moment for which Fay was disproportionately grateful.

  ‘What’s up with Jekyll and Hyde?’ Maura said.

  ‘They’re both after being Hyde,’ Fay replied. She glanced at her husband, who seemed to be oblivious to the noise and argument.

  The trouble was, the
y had all been affected by Patrick’s mood. Maura became especially affectionate, bringing him cups of tea and kissing his brow as if he were an invalid; the boys, confused by the tension in the air, mistook it for bad feeling, absorbed it like little sponges and took their aggression out on each other. Fay remained quiet and watchful, keeping the boys out of his way and making sure that Patrick ate regularly. Occasionally, she would brush her hand against his, or squeeze his arm in passing. Sometimes he would return the gesture, sometimes not, but he would always make eye contact, to let her know that they were okay, that he had ceased to blame her.

  Fay contented herself with this as she watched Patrick toy with the shepherd’s pie she had made — his favourite meal. He separated the mashed potato from the meat, as if searching for something.

  The phone rang and Doran clattered his fork against his plate. Maura sprang to the phone on the kitchen wall. ‘Probably Gray,’ she said, then chirruped, ‘Doran residence.’ She sounded confident and happy, and Fay felt a pang of anxiety for her daughter. Maura might be perverse and obstinate, but Fay recognised the underlying insecurity she herself had experienced as a teenager. She would rather have died than admit that she was lonely and frightened when she first came to England, and Maura was the same, pretending that everything was fine, that the storm clouds that seemed to gather over their house was no more than a passing shower, that Daddy was just over-worked. Maura had never had a money worry in her life and Fay, who had grown up poor and got out early, wanted desperately to protect her daughter from the privations she had endured. Fay had been forced by circumstances to make the transition from girl to woman too fast, and she wanted things to be different for Maura.

  Maura chatted happily for a minute or two, and Doran went back to his food, taking a forkful into his mouth and chewing mechanically.

  ‘For you, Dad,’ she said, holding the phone out to him.

  Doran frowned. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Megan . . . someone.’

  He stood, scraping his chair loudly on the tiles. His face was white, and Fay recognised both anger and fear in his expression.

  ‘I’ll take it in my study,’ he said.

  Maura held the receiver in her hand, looking puzzled and a little frightened. ‘Daddy?’ she said.

  He walked out without looking at either of them, and Fay took the receiver, closing her palm over the mouthpiece and slipping her free arm around her daughter’s shoulders. ‘It’ll be fine,’ she said, her voice warm and soft.

  She listened until she heard her husband pick up the phone in his study.

  ‘Ward?’ he said. ‘What the hell—’

  Fay quietly replaced the receiver. She didn’t want to know. Did not want to know.

  * * *

  ‘What the hell did you say to my daughter?’ Doran demanded.

  ‘Nothing, Mr Doran.’ Megan Ward sounded shocked, a little breathy. ‘Idle chat — girl talk — that’s all.’

  ‘You do not speak to my family. Are we clear?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes — I — I’m sorry.’

  He took a moment to get his own breathing under control.

  ‘I wanted to explain to you about yesterday.’

  ‘You set me up,’ he said, ‘and you want to explain?’

  ‘I didn’t — I didn’t set you up, I swear, Mr Doran. I wanted to make the meet. They stopped me.’

  ‘They?’

  ‘The police.’

  ‘Why should I believe you?’

  ‘Because I’m telling you the truth.’

  ‘What do they want?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She was havering now, he could hear it in her voice.

  ‘You’re lying. The police show up, you don’t. There’s got to be a reason.’ Did they know about Bentley? Had the double-dealing bastard given the police copies of the photographs outside Sara Geddes’s house?

  ‘They don’t tell me anything,’ she insisted. ‘I’m just a scammer they’ve got over a barrel.’

  ‘D’you think I came over on the last ferry?’

  ‘No, Mr Doran.’ She seemed to be struggling to find the right words. ‘Look — I’m guessing — but I’d say they were onto your tax . . . stuff.’

  Doran sat, lowering himself carefully into his chair. This was one of those good news/bad news scenarios: the good news — that the police didn’t know about his involvement in the Geddes woman’s death and Bentley’s disappearance. The bad news: they probably knew that he owed a couple of millions in back-taxes. Did they know about the insurance accounts? Did they know just how much Ward had stolen from him?

  ‘Have you been talking, Megan?’ His voice was syrupy.

  ‘No — God, no!’ Her breathing sounded tremulous and watery. ‘Mr Doran, I just want my life back.’

  ‘So we do have something in common, after all.’

  ‘I’m way out of my league,’ she went on. ‘I wanted — I want to give it all back.’

  His heart skipped a beat. But even as the adrenaline surged into his bloodstream, he noticed she was avoiding saying outright what she intended. ‘Give “it” back’, she had said. ‘Tax stuff.’

  ‘Can we talk freely?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’ She sounded both weary and excitable, almost feverish with terror and very close to breakdown. ‘I told you—’ she insisted. ‘They don’t tell me anything.’

  Okay . . . he thought. Okay . . . The adrenaline still fizzed in his system, and with it, a tiny glimmer of optimism.

  ‘The tax man can be very . . . accommodating, so I’ve heard,’ she said, as though she had read his thoughts. ‘The bigger the sum, the more accommodating he can be. You must know that.’

  Of course he did. He read the financial pages of the newspapers: forward tax contracts with the Inland Revenue had effectively allowed the wealthy to operate outside the tax system for years, but it looked like those days were gone. He shook his head impatiently. He was getting way ahead of himself: the important thing was to get the money back and worry later about how to avoid the tax man getting his hands on it. Jago would know a corporate tax lawyer, someone who could minimize the damage.

  ‘You want your life back?’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then I want all of it.’

  ‘Every last penny.’ She sounded fervent; he could almost picture her with her hand on her heart. He let her sweat a little while.

  ‘When I see full restoration, you’re off the hook.’

  She gave a grateful sob. ‘But—’

  Fuck. ‘But — what?’

  ‘A certain department is all over your network like a bad dose of MRSA.’

  ‘Don’t do this,’ he said. ‘Don’t piss me off, Megan.’

  ‘I’m not messing with you, I swear. Look, why don’t you check with your computer experts and I’ll call back.’

  The line went dead and Doran stared at the receiver. His scalp felt tight, as though his brain had swollen, pressing against the plates of his skull, and stretching the skin, till it felt like a ripe tomato, threatening to split. She hung up. Suffering God, the bitch hung up on me! What if she didn’t call back? What if she vanished for ever with his money? If he failed Fay and Maura and the boys . . . ‘Oh, God,’ he groaned, replacing the receiver and putting his head in his hands. His face felt cold and damp with sweat. He clutched his hair, tugging it at the roots, desperate to feel something other than this mind-searing terror.

  ‘No,’ he told himself. ‘Don’t you fucking give up now, Patrick.’ He had tackled hard men, who tried to muscle in on his turf, scallies sneaking onto his sites to steal building materials and heavy plant machinery. He had seen off the competition, both legitimate and gang-financed. He had faced a murder prosecution and got off free and clear; he had clawed back from the losses of the stock market collapse in the mid-nineties, and he would not be bested by a fucking woman.

  He inhaled and wiped the sweat from his face. He would not fail. It became a mantra. Failure was not an option.


  * * *

  David Manning was working late, as he had done since Doran brought him in to sort out the mess Nathan Wilde had left. When Doran phoned, the technical forensics expert was installing firewalls, prior to reinstating records, checking programmes line by line for viruses and God alone knew what else.

  ‘How’s it going?’ he asked. He knew he sounded strained, but he was counting on Manning putting it down to the general screwed-up state of his business.

  ‘We’re getting there, Mr Doran.’ He sounded as calm and unruffled as he always did.

  There was an awkward pause, Doran not sure how to ask what he needed to know without telling Manning he had defrauded the Inland Revenue, and that he thought the Fraud Squad were after him. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Great.’

  ‘Was there something specific?’ Manning asked.

  ‘No, not specific . . . um, actually—’ Doran laughed, hating the nervousness in it. ‘It’s rather a vague enquiry. Have you noticed any . . . unusual activity?’

  ‘Warlock?’ Manning said, suddenly sharp.

  ‘Or anything of that sort.’ There was another pause, this one pregnant with significance.

  ‘We have had a rather persistent visitor — he comes in by a back door, has a rummage around, then drops off the radar before we can trace him.’

  ‘Bloody hell, Manning — you’re supposed to be locking these bastards out!’

  ‘As I explained,’ Manning said, his voice calm and conciliatory, without for one moment sounding apologetic, ‘we’re getting there, but Warlock created so many points of access that your system, in layman’s terms, is leaking like a colander. We have to find each hole in turn and plug it. You’ll have to accept a certain level of insecurity until we find all the back doors.’

  Doran almost laughed. He had been living with the worst kind of insecurity ever since he found out that his money had been stolen.

  ‘I have somebody working on the sub-routine that opened the hatches, so to speak,’ Manning went on. ‘She’s almost cracked it. When she does, we will be able to block the virus that let Warlock in.’

  ‘Can’t you just de—’ Doran found that he didn’t have the right terms in his lexicon. ‘I don’t know — de-bug the system, or inoculate, or whatever you call it?’