The Cutting Room

by Ashley Dyer

  “You say coolly, I’d say incompetently.”

  “He’s also the one who conveniently found the taunting note in the job car.”

  Carver shook his head. “Why would he bring the note to me if he’d written it—why not let someone else find it?”

  “Because he wanted the glory? Or maybe he just wanted to see your face as you read the word ‘CLUELESS.’”

  “It makes a good story,” Carver conceded.

  He’s not convinced. Convince him. “After the closed session to brief the core team on Mr. Fenst, he was desperate to know what was said.” She hesitated, chose her words carefully, not wanting to “out” Tom Ivey: “I even heard him trying to coerce one of the team.”

  A sharp scowl. “Who?”

  “Tom Ivey, and believe me, he was having none of it. But hours later, Tom is attacked by someone in disguise.”

  “Coincidence,” Carver said. “We already had concerns that Scanlon might be targeted—Tom just got in the way.” He stared at her. “Ruth, are you saying that Parr is the leak and that he’s the Ferryman?”

  Every fiber of her unreasoning, lizard brain screamed, Yes!, but the rational scientist in her argued that she didn’t have enough on Parr to be certain. “I don’t know,” she admitted at last. “But this guy ticks every narcissistic psychopath box on the form.”

  “That’s one percent of the population, isn’t it?” Carver said, with a twitch of his eyebrows. “He may be an unpleasant dick, but that doesn’t make him a killer.”

  Ruth placed her ace card on the table. “Remember Mr. Hollis?”

  “I have a brain injury, Ruth,” Carver said, calmly, “not Alzheimer’s.”

  “Sorry,” she said.

  He sighed. “What’s your point?”

  “Hollis recognized Steve Norris from the photo. So maybe he’d recognize the abductor, too.”

  Carver nodded slowly, and she thought he was beginning to get it. “It was Parr who brought the message that Hollis had arrived,” he said, remembering.

  “And you told him to take the old man to an interview room.”

  “But he wasn’t there when we got downstairs,” Carver added.

  “I checked,” Ruth said. “Apparently, he palmed the job off onto another volunteer.”

  After the longest moment, Carver said, “All right. I’ll concede he has questions to answer. Bring him in.”

  “He’s already here,” she said. “I’ve got him doing some busywork.”

  70

  Parr was printing questionnaires when they got to the MIR; when he saw them, he blanched. His eyes darted to the door, but he quickly recovered.

  “Almost done with the scut work,” he said, smiling. “Am I forgiven now? Can I get out and do some real policing?”

  “We need to ask you some questions,” Ruth said.

  He looked her up and down, and Carver saw an instantaneous hot glow around Parr’s eyes, extinguished in a second, and Carver had the strangest sensation. It seemed that a liquid ghost of the man duplicated and shone for a brief moment just outside the contours of his face, then vanished, leaving a flat gray light.

  At that moment, Carver knew that Parr was guilty. “Get your jacket,” he said. “You might not be coming back.”

  Heads turned, and a hush fell over the room as they walked the special constable out.

  They talked over interview strategy while Parr sweated it out in one of the smaller interview rooms. When they began the interview, he was stone-cold emotionless.

  Carver began by asking about the note Parr had supposedly found in the fleet car.

  “Are you suggesting I put it there?”

  “Did you?”

  “Did you find any evidence of me on the note? Inside the bag?”

  Carver didn’t answer.

  He saw the tiniest gleam of satisfaction in the constable’s eye. “That’s what I thought.”

  “The crew who used the car say they locked it at the scene,” Carver said.

  “Well, they would, wouldn’t they?”

  “Surveillance recordings taken at the scene do not suggest that the car was interfered with in any way.”

  Parr shrugged. “The keys are on the board. Anyone could’ve—”

  “The car in question remained in the secure car park overnight,” Carver said. “CCTV shows nobody went near the car. Except you.”

  Ruth had been thorough, as usual—she’d had answers to most of the objections Parr might raise, even before she voiced her suspicions to Carver.

  “Those cars are in and out all day,” Parr said. “It’s impossible to say when the note was put there.”

  “It’s a coincidence that you found it,” Carver said.

  “You got me,” Parr said. “I’m guilty. Of doing my job.”

  Ruth placed a printout in front of him. “This is a copy of a mobile phone log. It was used at exactly the time, and for the same duration, as a call to a crime reporter at Liverpool Daily, three days ago. The caller claimed to be the Ferryman, and he had inside information on the case.”

  “That’s not my mobile,” Parr said.

  “No,” Ruth said. “It’s a police mobile. Logged out to you on that day.”

  “I left it on my desk for a bit—it’s not like they’re password locked, is it?”

  He didn’t miss a beat. And the lies kept on coming.

  “In fact, I thought I’d lost it at one point—finally unearthed it from a pile of paperwork, right where I’d left it.” He smiled, but the attempt at self-deprecating humor did not reach the eyes.

  There’s nothing behind the eyes, Carver thought.

  Carver nodded to Ruth, and she opened a buff document folder, slid out a thick wad of papers: duplicates of documents and memos; crime scene photos obviously snapped in the MIR—a couple from PowerPoint presentations at briefings.

  “These were in your locker,” he said. “Can you explain why you had sensitive and confidential documents and images?”

  “Helps me to think about the case,” Parr said.

  “If we search your home, will we find more of these?” Carver asked.

  “Maybe. But where’s the harm in that? The rumor mill says you had half the reports on your last case tacked up on your bedroom wall.”

  He’s trying to rattle you. Carver deliberately relaxed the tension in his shoulders and smiled.

  He saw a flare of anger as a marmalade glow off the man, then he faded to gray again.

  “Is that what you do, Jason? Dig the dirt on your coworkers?”

  “Nah,” Parr said. “I’m just curious about people. Goes with the job, curiosity. It’s a strength in a good cop, isn’t it?”

  “Not when you try to coerce information out of your colleagues,” Carver said.

  He thought he saw a slight check there.

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “You were asking questions about a closed meeting. A meeting you weren’t invited to, and which was none of your business. You threatened a colleague when they refused to talk to you about it.”

  “Well, I can guess who that would be. Is that what he said—that I threatened him?”

  “No,” Ruth said. “That’s what I say.” She held his gaze, and Carver felt an almost physical push of willpower between Ruth Lake and their suspect.

  Parr looked away with a sneer. “I know he’s your pet project, Sarge, but Tom Ivey’s hiding way more than I am—I can promise you that.”

  “Where were you yesterday evening at eleven thirty p.m.?” Carver asked.

  “Is that when he was attacked?”

  “Answer the question, Jason,” Ruth said.

  “Let’s see . . .” Parr leaned back in his chair and clasped his fingers behind his head. “Went for a swim in the HQ gym at nine thirty. Finished around ten forty. Had a pint at the Baltic Fleet. They stop serving at eleven, weekdays, but I met a couple of mates, so we went down to the Albert Dock for another at chucking-out time. You’ll be wanting to check that. We’re pr
obably on CCTV half a dozen times, but I can give you their names and numbers, if you like.”

  71

  Parr’s alibi held good, but he was now subject to a disciplinary hearing, and he was sent home on suspension and told to stay there until he was called. Carver hadn’t said anything, but Ruth knew he was thinking they were back at square one, and dead center of that square was Adam.

  He’s right. Wishful thinking does not prove innocence.

  In the months after their parents died, Adam had tantrums, destructive rages—he’d slammed the kitchen door in her face after one major row, shattering the glass panes and cascading her in shards. His look of horror and remorse was instant and genuine. He’d wept in her arms, begging for forgiveness. What had he said? I’ve got all this hate in me and I don’t know what to do with it.

  Could the kid brother who’d wept in her arms seek relief from the rage he carried around with him by hurting other people? The trompe l’oeil in his flat of the artist painting himself was unsettling, but it was clever and witty, too. The scene painted on the window shutters of Dave Ryan’s lair was realistic and beautiful. But then there was Adam’s failed attempt to reconstruct Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump—and what about the missing painting, Battered Wife?

  Ruth reached across the desk for her mobile and rang John Hughes. “Thanks for the info on the fingerprint,” she said.

  “How did Carver take it?”

  “Well.” She immediately changed the subject: “Is the search of Adam’s place finished?”

  “Not yet. Was there something in particular you were interested in?”

  “His paintings. You didn’t find any more?”

  “Just three in the shop front, and the one painted directly onto the wall,” Hughes said.

  “Okay, thanks, John.”

  Adam’s housemates had been displaced by the police search, but she had temporary addresses for them. She grabbed her jacket and headed out, wanting to ask her questions face-to-face, but an hour later, she was no closer to finding her brother. His two business partners were loyal to Adam, and in no mood to help her. They couldn’t—or wouldn’t—say where he might be, claiming that Adam did most of his work on-site at the homes or businesses of his clients. They were lying through their teeth.

  Frustrated, she pulled her phone out of her jacket pocket on the way back to her car and scrolled down her contacts to Milner’s number.

  She composed herself and hit the dial icon.

  He greeted her cordially and asked how he might help.

  “Would you happen to know if Adam Black has a studio?” Ruth asked, taking care to keep her tone neutral.

  “Is he missing?” he asked, then immediately apologized. “Sorry—none of my business. Let me see now . . . Yes—yes, he did have a studio when he was at Fairfield. A room in an old Board School building in Kensington; I visited it a couple of times.”

  “D’you have an address?”

  “Not an exact one, I’m afraid, but it was on the corner of Low Hill and West Derby Street—it should be easy to find.”

  She drove north and then east, avoiding the worst of the city center traffic by skimming past the University of Liverpool along Brownlow Hill. At the top of the hill, taking a left turn past the cool, gleaming, glass-and-tile structures of the new biosciences buildings, she began to have misgivings. Fifty yards on, she knew she’d made a wasted journey: ahead of her, the roadworks that had disrupted traffic flow for nearly three years. She could see the hoardings that marked the outer edge of the new, and some said jinxed, Royal Liverpool Hospital. The old school, along with every building along half a mile of roadway, had been demolished to make way for the hospital.

  72

  DC Ivey knocked at Greg Carver’s door at around eleven a.m.

  “Looks like we caught a break, boss,” he said.

  Carver waved him into the office.

  “House-to-house near the North Docks turned up a witness,” Ivey said. “A white van pulled up outside a house on one of the new estates in Vauxhall. Householder sees a man fiddling with the rear number plate, goes out to ask what’s going on. Van driver says his number plate’s come loose; he’s just tightening it up. Registration: A33 VAN.”

  “When was this?” Carver reached for his phone, ready to call in the Matrix team. “Is it possible he’s still in the area?”

  Ivey shook his head. “Sorry, boss—he didn’t hang about. But he had to do a three-point turn to get out of the street—that estate is all linked closes—one way in, one way out. The witness noticed that he had different plates front and rear.”

  “Did he get the rear plate?”

  “He did better than that: he snapped a sneaky photo from inside the house.” Ivey grinned, placing a printout of the photo on Carver’s desk.

  Carver felt a surge of optimism. “We need to get a description of the driver from the witness.”

  “Someone’s bringing him in as we speak.”

  Carver arranged to have the rear plate number circulated and given as a priority to staff checking ANPR for the stolen vehicle.

  Then he rang Ruth.

  “D’you need me there?” she asked.

  “Depends,” he said. “What are you doing?”

  “It seemed odd we haven’t found more of Adam’s artwork, and I was thinking maybe he rents a studio,” she said. “His flatmates were no help, but Mr. Milner gave me a lead on a place he used in college.”

  “Don’t approach him alone, Ruth,” Carver warned. “I know he’s your brother, but I don’t want you taking any chances.”

  “The place he used isn’t there anymore,” she said. “Demolished to make way for the new hospital, but I’m thinking if it was compulsory-purchased, the tenants might have been offered alternative accommodation.”

  “What’s your plan?”

  “I’ll head over to the council offices, see if I can find out any more.”

  “All right,” he said. “But if you get an address, call it in and we’ll send an armed team out. Okay?”

  “Sure.”

  He knew that tone. Tell them whatever they want to hear, then do as you see fit.

  “Ruth, I mean it.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Me too.”

  Then she was gone. His phone rang and he forgot about her for a spell, turning his attention instead to coordinating the search for the white van. ANPR checks on the new plate number quickly paid off. Sightings took the search to a tiny quadrant of the North Docks. From there, they worked back through CCTV recordings of that stretch of road for the last five days.

  Every sighting added to a pattern; the pattern, as it emerged, narrowed the search perimeter. Carver sent out a message to concentrate on older buildings—if the Ferryman was using a tea warehouse, it would not have been built any later than 1910.

  73

  Until recently, the council offices had been housed in municipal buildings, a huge block in the city center: Town Hall, Education Department, Housing and Benefits, all side by side in a stone-faced building that would not have looked out of place in the center of Paris. But the bulk of it had been sold off to a hotel chain in 2016 and departments relocated all over the city. Ruth found what she was looking for in the Cunard Building at the Pier Head. Previously home to one of the great shipping lines, it was designated one of the “Three Graces” of Liverpool; clad in Portland stone, it gleamed like pristine snow in the spring sunshine.

  From the grand marble hallway, DS Lake was directed to the Planning Department and found her way through an oak door into a large open-plan office. For a couple of minutes, she was studiously ignored. Then she knocked on the countertop and called, “Service!”

  A woman glanced up from a desk on the far side of the counter. “Help you, love?” She was middle-aged, unshowy, but neatly turned out—the kind who carried herself with quiet confidence and brooked no nonsense.

  Ruth showed her warrant card and was allowed through to the office. Around fifteen people were working at comp
uters or taking calls; the office hummed with understated industriousness.

  “Sorry about the wait,” the woman said. “We’re a bit short-staffed.”

  “Norovirus?” Ruth asked.

  “No doubt there was some projectile vomiting involved, but all self-inflicted.”

  Ruth cocked an eyebrow.

  “A syndicate of three lads from the office hit the jackpot on the Pools.” She meant the Football Pools—top prize, a million pounds. “They haven’t been in all week.”

  “Partying too hard?” Ruth asked.

  “In the Caribbean, no less. One of the silly sods stuck a photo on Facebook. Talk about rubbing salt in the wound—I could murder them, honestly, I could.”

  She seemed to reflect on the folly of youth for a second, then shrugged. “Now, what can I do for you?”

  Ruth gave the location and name of the old Board School where Adam had rented a studio. “Problem is, it’s now part of the new Royal building site,” Ruth said.

  The admin officer rolled her eyes—delays, cracks in the structure, and later the sudden and catastrophic collapse of Carillion, the multinational company tasked with building it, had put the hospital’s completion, as well as hundreds of jobs on Merseyside, in doubt.

  Ruth twitched an eyebrow. “What can you say?”

  “If you’re asking, I’d say give the women the top jobs, something might actually get done right,” the woman answered with some passion.

  Ruth smiled. “Wouldn’t that be something?”

  Rapport established, the woman said, “So what d’you want to know about the old school?”

  “I was thinking there must have been compulsory-purchase order on it,” Ruth said. “I’m looking for one of the previous tenants: Adam Black.”

  “And you’ll be wanting to know if we offered alternative premises to the displaced tenants.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, we don’t rehouse private tenants, and my guess is the school’s buildings would’ve been privately owned after it was decommissioned by the council,” the administrator explained. “But we might’ve advised on relocation.”