Kate, who was similar in many respects to Tara, had arrived still wearing her nurse’s uniform, a change of clothes stuffed in a carrier bag. Tara hadn’t even managed that much, and arrived dressed in a black pleated skirt, black jumper and opaque tights. The girls always had fun together, and talk soon turned to their planned trip to the sun.
‘Just because you’re jetting off to Lanzarote with your mum doesn’t mean we can’t finalise our holiday together.’
‘Let’s get it over with,’ said Kate in reply to Aisling. ‘And remember what I said last time, I’m not bloody going to Tenerife. I want to go on a cruise.’
‘OK, OK we hear you, Kate love. Tara has a new idea for us, don’t you, Tara?’
Tara looked in confusion at Aisling. She hadn’t the faintest idea what her friend was talking about.
‘Come on, Tara, let’s hear it,’ said Kate, throwing herself onto a sofa then reaching for her wine glass. For Aisling’s sake, Tara knew she had to come up with something.
‘Well,’ she began, ‘I was thinking of Thailand.’
Kate looked sternly at her.
‘No you bloody weren’t. You’ve just said the first thing that came into your head.’
Aisling roared and clapped her hands in delight, and Tara couldn’t keep her face straight.
Much debating, bickering and several glasses of wine later the three of them tentatively agreed that their summer holiday would be to Cuba. By the end of the evening, no one could take the credit for suggesting Cuba, but it seemed that no one could raise a strong enough objection for them not to go. Tara laughed herself hoarse. She and Aisling were drunk, and Kate had fallen asleep an hour earlier. Aisling tipped the last of a bottle of Chardonnay into her glass while Tara nursed a glass of Baileys.
‘What would we do without each other?’ said Aisling. She set down her glass, and went to her bedroom, returning in a few seconds with a blanket. She placed it over Kate and stroked her friend’s blonde hair gently.
‘Seems like we’ve been friends forever,’ said Tara.
‘Do you think it will always be like this? Will we ever get married and have kids and husbands to train?’
‘Who knows, Aisling?’ smiled Tara. ‘Look how things have turned out for Kate. Who’d have thought she and Adam would break up?’
Aisling smiled. ‘You know, sometimes I think as long as we three have each other I don’t much care about a husband.’
‘But you’d miss…’
‘I don’t mean for us to go without sex, for goodness’ sake! I just mean that it might not be so important, to have a man to live with forever.’
Tara couldn’t bring herself to agree, but so long as they were drunk she was happy to talk the type of rubbish that Aisling currently was. Tara would hold on to the belief that one day all three of them would be happily married, settled with a couple of kids each and hopefully still the best of friends. Not everything had to change.
Aisling was now fading, sinking back in her armchair, her half-full glass resting precariously in her hand. Tara studied both of her friends, her confidantes. Tonight was the first in years that she had sailed through without thought or mention of her job. For this brief moment they could be teenagers again, sleeping over at Aisling’s house, discussing boys and sex and music and clothes without a care for tomorrow or what it might bring. Maybe Aisling was right, maybe their lives should remain free of further change. Maybe there was more safety to be had in keeping everything unchanged, keeping three friends loving, and watching out for each other.
Chapter 48
I saw it on the news. What the fuck is going on? The bizzies arrested Janek, my dealer. Do they know already that Janek supplies me with china white? Does Tara know that’s what I use to put my girls to sleep? Of course she does. She was tested, the night I snatched her. It was mentioned in court when I got done for aggravated sexual assault. The wee bitch is putting it all together. First she goes to Belfast to find out all she can about Linda Meredith, then she’s talking to my Aunt Margaret about me, and now she’s arrested Janek and no doubt is firing all sorts of questions at him. And you can be sure it’s all about me.
If I don’t act soon, I’m fucked. Tara could be ready to arrest me any day now. I keep telling myself that she has no real evidence. How could she? I don’t leave any traces. Unless the peelers in Belfast have managed to find my DNA on the body they pulled from the sea. But I don’t believe they have. That leaves only Tara’s suspicions about me. Maybe she has remembered what I did to her, and her wee imagination is running riot in that pretty head of hers. But she must be thinking of me. Why else would she speak with my Aunt Margaret?
Janek’s arrest really scares me. What is he likely to tell them? He doesn’t have any loyalty to me. I’m just one of his customers, nothing else. But it was all over the local news. They’re saying that a gang feud has erupted in Liverpool and it’s linked to drugs. Next thing I saw was Janek walking from St Anne Street nick, wearing his stinking leather coat. Released on bail apparently. But why St Anne Street, unless it has something to do with Tara’s investigation? And I know she doesn’t work with the drug squad. She works on murder investigations.
The big question for me now, is how much do her colleagues know about me? How much of her flying to Belfast, her talking to my Aunt Margaret, and questioning Janek has she shared with her mates? If she’s keeping most of it to herself I still might have a chance. I could snatch her, do what I should have done ages ago and dump her in the Irish Sea.
Kirsty went out with her mates this evening, to plan her hen party. That left me time to plan a party of my own. A stag party with a difference, you might say. No other blokes involved. Just me, one of Tara’s mates and, hopefully, Tara — to bring to an end the party of a lifetime.
With all the thinking I’m doing, planning and stuff, I realised I now have another wee problem. It may not be such a clever idea to go bothering Janek for a supply of china white. I’m quite certain the bizzies are keeping a close eye on what he gets up to. Besides, Janek is not going to set himself up by traipsing around the city carrying a stash of drugs. He’s not that stupid. I’m sure he’ll be lying low for a while. That means I will have to suss out another supplier before I go after one of Tara’s friends.
This is getting so messy, already.
Chapter 49
It didn’t take long to dispel Tara’s memory of a fun evening. Facing her on her screen was a comprehensive dossier on James Guy. Gina Marshall had been both thorough and successful in researching the early life of her suspect. She scrolled through the file hoping, somewhat ridiculously, that the key to this mystery man, the vital evidence that proved him the serial killer she believed him to be, would leap from the screen. With no such clue immediately apparent, she began reading the file from the beginning.
Several documents were embedded within the report. A birth certificate confirmed Guy’s age as nearly thirty-six. His mother was named as Rachel Guy, the father’s name was not given.
The only home address provided for the young James was the house Tara had visited with Gina Marshall — the family home in Bangor now occupied by Rachel Guy’s sister Margaret.
The next item in the file had Tara calling out across the office for Wilson. He rushed to her desk.
‘Yes, mam?’
‘John, I need the photos again from Lawler’s flat.’
‘Yes, mam.’
It seemed like the hundredth time she had made the same request, for a different reason each time. When Wilson retrieved the folder, Tara spread the photos across her desk. Wilson couldn’t help looking on. So many times they had discussed the significance of this collection, speculating on why Terry Lawler had compiled it. Now, Tara had reason once more to study the pictures.
Quickly, she selected one photograph. Twenty-four of the twenty-nine photos, thanks to Wilson’s hard work, had names attached. The one that Tara lifted from the desk did not. It was a faded colour snap of a girl, probably in her early twentie
s, with a hairdo reminiscent of the eighties, blonde highlights swept back and high, long dangling earrings and shoulder pads. Tara compared the photograph with the image on her screen, a picture of Rachel Guy, at an age given as twenty-one. According to Marshall’s report, Rachel was only twenty-four when she left home. James was eight years old then. That meant she had been sixteen when she gave birth to her son.
The girl on the screen had a more natural look than the young woman in the snap, with less make-up and longer fair hair. But there was no doubt that the girl in both pictures was one and the same. Rachel Guy. She wondered if Terry Lawler had figured out who she was.
What had caused a mother to leave home for good, to abandon her young son? The implication by her sister Margaret was that Rachel had deliberately taken off, not that she had been abducted. It was difficult to imagine how a young mother could leave home and, quite deliberately, never contact her family again.
She wondered how James had dealt with such loss, and what he thought of his mother.
Tara kept reading, and Wilson returned to his desk. There was nothing exciting in the remaining text. James was abandoned by Rachel when he was eight years old and she hadn’t been heard of since. James then lived with his grandmother, Agnes Guy, who died when he was seventeen. He attended the local primary school and moved to grammar school when he passed the transfer examinations at age eleven. He got two A levels, in English and History, but did not go to university. Instead, he held a series of jobs in the greater-Belfast area: working at MacDonald’s, then at a service station and finally as a delivery driver. The document contained other information that Tara already knew, about Guy’s life since he moved to Liverpool. It was sketchy, to say the least. Nothing about friends or relationships, and nothing to suggest that James Guy had ever done anything untoward to young women in Northern Ireland or England. His school reports marked him as a student with potential for academic achievment, quiet and lacking friends. That was not enough to prove he subsequently snatched women, murdered them and dumped their bodies in the sea. All she had in terms of evidence was his conviction for what he had done to her.
Her phone rang, and when she picked it up the voice was that of a female with a Belfast accent.
‘Good morning, mam, it’s DC Marshall.’
‘Ah good morning, Gina. Thank you for the report on James Guy. I was just reading through it.’
‘No problem, mam. I’m calling, though, about the murder of Ryan Boswell. Thought you might be interested to know that Carly McHugh is missing from home.’
‘Oh. Do you think something has happened to her?’
‘No, I don’t believe so. Officers at Belfast Port clocked her boarding the ferry for Cairnryan four days ago. It has just registered on our system.’
‘Do you know of any reason for her going there?’
‘No. It could be entirely innocent, or she may be on a job for her father.’
‘Do you think it’s possible she’s travelled on from there to Liverpool?’
‘Hard to say, mam, although I would guess she’s returned to her flat in Sunderland. It is more likely she’d take the Liverpool ferry, if she was coming your way.’
‘True. Many thanks for that, Gina. I’ll be in touch if anything happens over here.’
‘Bye, mam.’
Tara put down the phone and leaned back from her computer. James Guy was once again relegated to the lower leagues of her thinking. Perhaps Carly McHugh had returned to her flat in Sunderland to pick up her life again. Perhaps she was going there to clear things up on her father’s behalf, before starting again elsewhere.
Or perhaps she had entirely different intentions.
Chapter 50
Much to the chagrin of DCI Weir, the investigation into the murder of Ryan Boswell remained the responsibility of Harold Tweedy’s team, while he took charge of investigations into the killing of Tyler Finlay. Since both victims had been members of the same gang and their deaths both seemed to be connected, to the drug trade, it would usually have made sense for both investigations to be brought under one senior investigating officer. But operations and police staffing arrangements didn’t always follow the most logical route, Tara knew. Having just left the briefest of meetings with Tweedy and Weir, she already felt stifled in her pursuit of Ryan Boswell’s killer.
It transpired that the gun used to shoot Tyler Finlay in the face was not the same weapon used in the killing of Boswell, nor did it have a history of use in Belfast. For Weir, this pointed to gang activity on Merseyside, while for Tara it didn’t necessarily rule out the killings being linked to the McHugh and Hobbs gang in Belfast. She had even dared to ask Weir what he had gained from the arrest of another supposed drug dealer, Janek Poska. He had answered with his increasingly familiar condescension.
‘You’re assuming, DI Grogan, that my interest in Poska is connected solely to the murders of Finlay and Boswell. I haven’t said so.’
‘Well, is Poska linked to the murders?’ she asked brusquely. Tweedy was for the moment a pensive-looking bystander, but Tara guessed he had sensed some of Weir’s petulance. Weir, rather than respond to Tara, addressed Tweedy directly.
‘I am not prepared to disclose my interest in Janek Poska, Harold. You’re forgetting that I have several ongoing operations relating to gangland activities in this city. I am not going to compromise my investigations. In my opinion, these murders are down to a feud. Don’t forget, Poska’s cousin Mikk Klavan is another victim, and it adds weight to my theory that a gang war is in full swing.’
Tara was tempted to throw in her news that Carly McHugh had left Belfast and, in her opinion, was quite possibly now in Liverpool. She didn’t think Weir deserved to hear it. Besides, she wouldn’t want such details to interfere with one of his ongoing operations. She bit her lip and thankfully, Tweedy put an end to her discomfort.
‘OK, Malcolm, we’ll continue to liaise with you over anything we turn up in relation to Boswell. If you would do likewise regarding Finlay, I would appreciate it.’
‘That’s fine, sir,’ Weir replied, rising from his seat and squeezing his frame through the door ahead of Tara. She caught a whiff of his delightful fragrance as she followed him from the office. When she reached her desk she called out, in irritated tones, for Alan Murray.
‘What’s up, Tara?’ Murray had chosen the wrong time to be familiar, and Tara glared at him.
‘Really, Alan, do I need to remind you?’
‘Sorry, mam.’ She let it rest. She’d vented her anger enough.
‘We need to have a look for Carly McHugh. I think she may have come back to Liverpool.’
‘To do what?’
‘Well it could be she is on her father’s business, but I can’t help thinking that she’s here to find whoever killed Boswell — that’s if she doesn’t already know.’
‘Do you think she killed Finlay?’
Tara closed her eyes and drew a deep breath. She feared getting this wrong. She dreaded another confrontation with DCI Weir. But she had met Carly McHugh, she’d witnessed her bravado and saw it crumble when it was suggested that she had been romantically involved with Boswell. And she’d caught a glimpse of the girl’s anger.
‘I really don’t know, Alan. What I can’t get out of my head is the idea that Boswell’s murder is linked with Belfast. The gun used to kill him had been used previously, in Belfast. Those men who showed up on Treadwater were from Belfast. I was warned, in Belfast, to keep my nose out. Yet Weir has told me repeatedly that it’s got nothing to do with Belfast. So why do I keep returning to Carly McHugh?’
‘What do we do next?’
‘I know it sounds implausible, but we have to search for the girl. Maybe she has gone to Sunderland, but if she’s come back to Liverpool then surely she will turn up in Treadwater. Firstly, check with police in Sunderland whether Carly’s flat is now occupied and also have them check out the address we found in Finlay’s notebook.’
*
Murray didn’t think th
ey would achieve much, and he told her so. Sitting in a car by a row of shops on the edge of the Treadwater Estate, they were doing little but hope someone interesting was going to pass by. Weak sunshine entered from her side of the car, making it difficult to see anything when she looked in that direction. Tara sounded as though she was trying to convince herself that they were doing the right thing.
The outcome of Murray’s communication with Sunderland Police added to her tentative beliefs. There was no sign of activity at McHugh’s apartment in Sunderland. The address found in Finlay’s notebook turned out to be a disused industrial unit near the docks.
‘If she’s out to avenge Ryan’s murder, she has to come into Treadwater.’
‘But you said Boswell’s killer probably came from Belfast. Why would she come here?’
‘No I didn’t, Alan. The gun used to kill Boswell had been used previously in Belfast.’
‘It amounts to the same thing. And then there were those two heavies hanging around at Boswell’s funeral.’
Tara fell silent and watched as a woman wheeled a child’s buggy past the car. Why else would Carly McHugh have returned to Liverpool, if not to seek revenge for the death of her boyfriend? Had she begun by shooting Tyler Finlay? He was the supposed leader of the Treadwater Vipers, so who had taken over from him? Her thoughts drifted and she was only dimly aware of the tones of Ken Bruce on Radio 2, asking phone-in listeners questions about pop music from before she was born. Murray answered a few and actually wasn’t bad on music from the eighties and nineties.
‘What do you think Carly was running from, the night Boswell was shot?’
Lethal Dose; Lethal Justice; Lethal Mind Page 67