What Falls Between the Cracks

by Robert Scragg

  ‘Why do I feel like you’re not telling me everything?’ she asked accusingly. ‘Do you think something has happened to her?’

  ‘There’s not a lot to tell at the moment, Mrs Arnold,’ Porter lied. ‘But the more we find out about her, the more chance we have of figuring out where she went. So, any friends or boyfriends you can tell me about?’

  There was no way he was about to tell her that they had her long-lost school friend’s hand in an evidence bag. He needed calm recollections, not thoughts scattered by a grisly revelation.

  ‘She had a steady boyfriend for a year at school, Tom Wilton, but they broke up before our final year and she played the field for a bit after that. I was always the one they would come and talk to in the bars, but it was so they could get to her. Not that I’m complaining. There were plenty to go around.’

  ‘Anyone in particular you remember?’ he asked. Porter started to feel like a broken record, and longed for her to just give him a straight answer without any rambling recollections.

  ‘She did have a thing for the bad boys,’ she began, a half smile turning the corners of her mouth upwards. ‘There weren’t loads but she knew how to pick them. There were a few I remember. One reckoned he was in the SAS, and kept disappearing for weeks saying he was on a mission. The other one wasn’t the best looker, but kind of hard to forget. He was that big that we joked he probably had a beanstalk in his back garden. Her dad and stepmum didn’t approve, mind.’

  Porter opened his mouth to ask his next question but stopped, mouth open like a goldfish. Rebecca Arnold gave a curious smile.

  ‘Detective, are you alright?’

  He nodded slowly, choosing his words, not wanting to get his hopes up.

  ‘The last one you mentioned, do you remember his name?’

  She looked away and up at the ceiling, as if there would be a clue lurking by the light fittings, swirling her fingers in a circular motion as she searched for a name.

  ‘John, Jim, Joey … something like that. Couldn’t say for sure, it’s been a long time.’

  ‘Did he have a scar here, by any chance?’ he asked, tracing a line from the edge of his jaw into the cleft of his chin.

  She shook her head. ‘No, I’m pretty sure he didn’t.’

  ‘Pretty sure, or certain?’ Porter practically barked the question at her, his impatience starting to show.

  ‘Certain.’ She leant back, her expression showing the slightest hint of frostiness at his tone.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Arnold. I didn’t mean to snap like that. It’s been a long few days.’

  ‘Who’s the man with the scar?’

  ‘Nobody. What about …’ He stopped short of asking her about the SAS wannabe when something else occurred to him. ‘Mrs Arnold, could you excuse me for just a minute.’

  She nodded, and he grabbed his phone from the table, logging in to his email. He found the attachment he was looking for, and scrolled through a few pictures. When he found the one he wanted, he put the phone down and spun it to face her.

  The black-and-white photograph onscreen showed a man who looked to be in his mid to late twenties, with an angry face like a bulldog chewing on a wasp, and a military-short haircut. Some people were like a rabbit in the headlights when they had their mugshot snapped. This man just looked bored. She looked at it for a few seconds then smiled, her whole face brightening as she looked up, like a pupil eager to please their teacher.

  ‘This is him. Where on earth did you get this?’

  Porter waited until they were all seated before he spoke. Styles was the last man in, and slid into the free seat between Anderson and Whittaker.

  ‘C’mon then, Porter,’ said Anderson impatiently. ‘What’s so important we’ve had to put lunch on hold? I’ve only had a bowl of that granola crap all day.’ He patted his gut as he winked at Whittaker, and Porter grimaced at the ripple of flesh beneath the shirt. ‘Girlfriend reckons healthy eating will trim me down and give me a new lease of life in retirement.’

  Porter held his phone down by his side. It was turned inwards against his leg to hide the screen. He saw Styles looking down at him, and realised his knee was bouncing up and down, but Porter kept his poker face on, tapping a rhythm out against his leg with the handset.

  ‘I’ve spoken with Rebecca Arnold, and things just got interesting,’ he said with an enigmatic smile.

  ‘Who the hell is she?’ asked Whittaker.

  ‘She’s a classmate of Natasha Barclay.’

  ‘Your hand with the missing body?’ asked Anderson. ‘What’s that got to do with our case? We’ll help if we get time, but we really need—’

  ‘They’re linked beyond doubt now. He’s the link.’ He whipped his hand up to chest height fast enough to give the man in the picture whiplash.

  ‘Is that who I think it is?’ said Styles softly.

  Porter smiled. ‘How many other six-foot-five arseholes do you know? Bolton knew Natasha Barclay. Mrs Arnold puts them together twice in the weeks leading up to Barclay’s suicide; the same time frame anyone last spotted Natasha. She’s pretty sure Natasha took him home after a night out.’

  ‘I can see it’s an old pic, but he looks different as well – I mean, not just younger.’

  ‘It was taken when he was hauled in for assault back in the eighties. He got jumped on by four blokes in the nick and ended up with a nasty slash from a razor blade across the chin. That’s where he got his attractive scar, but this was before that.’

  Anderson cleared his throat. ‘All very well and good, but how exactly does that help us with Bolton? So he knew her? Big deal. You saw what happened when we dragged him in with no proof. All this proves is that she didn’t exactly play hard to get if she put out after two dates.’

  Porter shot him an irritated glance and Anderson’s throaty chuckle died away. Attitude like this was exactly why he didn’t want Anderson with his hands on the steering wheel. Some people had their glass half empty. Anderson’s had a massive crack running down the side for good measure.

  ‘I’m not suggesting we run out and arrest him now, you daft bastard. We already know from his prints that he’s been in her apartment. He could spin that any number of ways, but now we have proof that he actually knew her personally. Think it through, though. Locke uses Bolton to intimidate Barclay. He also ends up talking the daughter into bed, and soon after that Barclay sells up, eats a bullet and she goes missing. You honestly think that was just coincidence?’

  Anderson just shrugged.

  ‘Bullshit,’ snapped Porter. He could feel the blood rising to his cheeks, hear the edge creeping into his voice, but he wasn’t going to let Anderson’s indifference infect the case, or his need to solve the puzzle. ‘Whatever he did, he did it for a reason. Who knows what he wanted? Maybe it was to get some kind of leverage over Barclay, maybe it was just an extra little “fuck you” from Locke.’

  ‘I agree it’s not just coincidence, guv,’ said Styles, ‘but how do we work backwards to figure out what the hell happened? I mean, it’s not as if Bolton is just going to give us a kiss and tell, is it?’

  Porter sighed. This was the part of the case still shrouded in a swirl of mist, and the harder he stared at it, the more impenetrable it became. ‘We start by going over the crime scene report again; question any anomalies, anything that looks out of place or doesn’t sound quite right. If we can place him in her flat the day she went missing, we can bring him back in.’

  ‘We can’t move on him yet,’ protested Anderson. ‘What about Locke? What about doing things right?’

  Porter glared at him. ‘If you’d done things right, we wouldn’t have one officer dead and another fighting for her life.’

  Anderson flinched as if he’d been slapped, and Porter instantly regretted it.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry. That was harsh. What I’m trying to say, though, is if we get him for something he did way back then, it takes the pressure off us to pin what happened yesterday on him. Don’t get me wrong,’ he added, ‘I�
��ll see him done for that as well, but it buys us time to work that case and gets him off the streets.’

  ‘We can still work the drugs angle as well,’ Styles piped up.

  Anderson looked at him and sneered. ‘So, what, then? We never needed Bolton all along, and just jump straight up to Locke? Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘No, but think about it. We already have the other guy on tape – Patchett? If Bolton gets taken out of the picture, Locke will need someone else to step in. Whoever that is will work with Patchett, so you turn Patchett just like you turned Carter.’

  ‘And look how well that worked out,’ mumbled Anderson under his breath.

  ‘Didn’t quite catch that,’ said Porter, the tone of his voice a clear warning to Anderson that he need not bother repeating it.

  ‘Nothing. Doesn’t matter.’

  Porter gave a grim smile then looked over at Styles. ‘OK then. While we’re all together, do you want to give an update on what you found with Locke’s little financial dealings?’

  Styles nodded and quickly summed up what he’d uncovered about the various companies Locke had snapped up over the years. He gave an overview of each purchase, mostly from memory, but snuck an occasional glance at the notepad in his lap. The businesses centred around four ports at key locations. Besides London, Locke operated in Grangemouth near Edinburgh, Grimsby on the east coast and Milford Haven nestled in the west, four points on a skewed compass. At each of these hubs, as Styles christened them, Locke had his own storage, his own transportation, and his own private security teams. The other three businesses were nothing to do with that industry: two restaurants in Dartford and a gym near Gravesend.

  They all listened intently as he painted a picture of an empire that had grown from a sapling to a network of companies whose reach sprawled across all of mainland Britain. Locke had a knack, it seemed, of snapping up struggling businesses for a fire-sale price, and turning their fortunes around. That wasn’t the only thing that each purchase had in common, though. All three businesses at the hub in Grangemouth had been privately owned by Alastair Reece. The Reece family had sold out to Alexander Locke after Mr Reece was killed in a road accident back in 1999. The east coast arm of the business in Grimsby was purchased after the owner, Martin Murphy, was killed in a hit-and-run after a night out in 1993. Wales was different. George Evans had lost his biggest customer in 1998 after a series of warehouse fires sent their confidence plummeting and his insurance premiums through the roof. Mr Evans’s last known address showed he had stayed in Wales but moved north to Caernarfon after he sold up.

  Styles closed his notebook and leant back to signal to his audience that his show and tell was done for now.

  ‘Brings a whole new meaning to hostile takeover,’ said Porter.

  ‘How the hell has nobody picked up on this before now?’ asked Whittaker.

  ‘Don’t care,’ said Porter. ‘What matters is that we have now and it ends here. You two take Murphy and Reece. See if anyone who worked the cases is still around, any of the family we can speak to. Styles and I will take Evans, and I want to have another chat with Mrs Locke, on her own this time.’

  ‘Yes, boss. Anything else while we’re at it? Shine your shoes, make your tea?’ said Anderson, a whininess creeping around the edge of his words like a petulant teenager. ‘I’ve got a better idea. How about you let us do our job and worry about your own case. We’ve worked too hard to just—’

  ‘Really?’ Porter cut him off. His tolerance for Anderson’s excuses slipped away in an instant. ‘Six months and the best you have – sorry, my mistake, had – was a low-level warehouse fella so small-time he barely registered on the scale of criminal intent. And you really think this is a pissing contest so I can get to shake hands with the chief constable and steal your headlines?’

  Anderson glared at him, but Porter hadn’t finished with him yet.

  ‘If we have evidence that James Bolton is guilty of murder, I’m damned if he gets to keep walking round no matter what else he’s done. I can place him with Natasha now, and I guarantee you he will have fucked up somewhere else as well. If I can pin whatever went down at her flat on him, or the scene from yesterday, then he’s going down for that.’

  He’d nearly said ‘then he’s mine’, but making it clear just how personal this was starting to feel wasn’t the way to get cooperation from the other detectives.

  He sucked in a deep breath and tried a different tack. ‘Look, we both want the same thing, but you don’t put one copper in the morgue and another in intensive care and get a stay of execution. If we can pin even one of those on him, then maybe he rolls and gives us Locke to strike a deal for himself.’

  ‘Whatever. Let’s just get on with it,’ Anderson grumbled. ‘But get one thing clear: you’re not my boss. You don’t order me around. I was closing cases when you were still squeezing spots, so less of the attitude and we’ll be just fine.’

  Porter just looked at him for a few seconds until Anderson broke the stare, and headed out with Whittaker in tow, looking slightly embarrassed by his partner’s reactions. Porter waited till they were both gone before closing the door and slumping back into his seat.

  ‘All the ladies love a bad boy, guv. Does this mean you want to start playing “bad cop” in our next interview?’

  Porter gave him a gentle rap on the shoulder with his knuckles and smiled. He thought of Simmons lying in her spider’s web of wires and tubes. Granted, there was nothing between them, not really. Nothing had actually happened. Maybe a little flirting, at worst? Worst? Best? He couldn’t decide what it was or what he wanted it to be. He couldn’t focus on that right now, but the idea that somebody he cared about could slip away at any time, without there being a damn thing he could do about it, stoked a fire that had only been embers since Holly. Even if it was only platonic, the concept of protecting those who couldn’t protect themselves was why he had joined up in the first place. Even though they couldn’t bring Bolton in yet, he felt in his gut that it was only a matter of time.

  All the ladies love a bad boy.

  Had that been Natasha’s mistake? The odds of her being alive were slim. He hoped that it had been quick for her. Maybe she hadn’t even seen it coming. Bolton didn’t strike him as a man much given to mercy, though. If he was involved, then it didn’t bode well for her, and maybe she had been her old man’s Achilles heel. Had losing her as well as the business tipped the scales and made his choice for him? Porter didn’t know what choices he would make if given the same circumstances, and hoped to God he never found out.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  An arctic front still claimed squatter’s rights even now with March only a week away. Slate-grey clouds balanced precariously on the peaks, scowling down at the valleys below, and splashes of stubborn snow speckled the higher ground like dandruff. The A5 sliced through the heart of Snowdonia National Park, following paths sculpted over four hundred million years by the crushing weight of ice.

  It was the kind of scenery that would make even a hardened city dweller stare in contemplative silence. Porter had spent nine years in the army, and had experienced the Welsh scenery first-hand on several training exercises, but without the creature comforts of a heated car interior. He smiled grimly at the memory of squatting behind the remnants of a drystone wall, blocks scattered like Jenga pieces, jealously guarding a fire from the savage wind, boiling water for a cup of tea he would savour like a fine wine.

  They spent most of the drive to George Evans’s house walking through the possible outcomes as far as Natasha Barclay was concerned. They both dismissed the notion that Natasha might still be alive. It would be hard enough to survive that kind of traumatic injury altogether, let alone without the support of your friends and family. The original theory that Barclay killed her himself still had merit. The fact that he might have been pushed to his limits and beyond to be able to do that by Locke systematically dismantling his world would not change that fact.

  After interviewing
Rebecca Arnold, there was an equally good chance that Bolton was their man. Bolton had a stake in Barclay selling out. Who was to say how far he would have gone to make sure that happened? There was also the possibility that it was for himself, and that he’d simply lost his temper with her. Porter knew he had that in him, that ability to cross the line and do what others could not stomach. Had Natasha said or done the wrong thing, flirted with another man in front of him? Could it have happened in the heat of the moment?

  The last scenario they considered was that it was someone else entirely, someone that hadn’t even made a ripple on the pond, let alone a big splash like Bolton. Porter conceded it was possible but unlikely. Bolton was still the prime suspect for him, although everything about the case against him still felt flimsy. They had a witness to place him with Natasha, and had his fingerprints in the apartment, but he could already picture the sneer he would get from Charles Jasper if they dragged Bolton in again with nothing more than that. They’d no doubt argue that he’d gone back there after a few drinks, had a drink, maybe more, and left promising to call her the next day. The perfect gentleman.

  At this stage, their best chance of a conviction still lay with Simmons waking up and positively identifying him as her attacker. As for Locke, there was nothing to verify that he either knew what Bolton had planned at the Taylor building or that he’d sanctioned it himself. Nor was there anything to link him directly to the avalanche of narcotics that flowed through his network. Their best shot at him, as of now, resided in an old farmhouse three miles from Caernarfon.

  According to the report Styles had dug up, George Evans had suffered in more than just the financial sense. The last fire had been at an overflow storage site near Haverfordwest, and Evans had been on-site when it happened. He had gone back into the building to help one of his men who had been overcome by the smoke, and ended up with third-degree burns across his right shoulder and down onto his bicep.