Cross and Burn

by Val McDermid

  By half past three, she had added one more possible to the pile. Another natural-looking blonde who’d died from cancer aged thirty-three. Unmarried but with a partner, according to the death notice. Three sisters and two brothers, a slew of nieces and nephews. Carol checked she’d copied the page to her laptop then packed up.

  The question now was what to do with the results of her inquiries. There wasn’t any point in sharing them with Bronwen or even Paula; this was something for Tony to ponder. She wondered whether the custody sergeant at Skenfrith Street would allow her to speak to Tony, in her assumed role as assistant to his lawyer.

  There was only one way to find out.

  62

  Stradbrook Tower had been the city council’s final mistake of the sixties. Paula reckoned they must have been the last local authority in the country to commission a tower block for council tenants. It had been the destination of last resort for residents for over ten years, but in the early eighties the council gave up trying to force their tenants into the damp-ridden condensation-plagued flats. The block had stood empty for a few years, then a bright spark in the housing department had realised it was relatively close to the mushrooming campus of Bradfield University. A deal was done, six months of remedial work was carried out and now the flats were home to hundreds of students.

  It was still a sore point with the locals, who felt, not unreasonably, that the flats could have been made habitable for them rather than the privileged scions of the middle class. Or spoilt rich bastards, as they preferred to think of them. And so the area around the tower block had become the perennial site for the ceremonial burning of stolen cars. From where she was standing, Paula could see three burnt-out wrecks. The one nearest to her had belonged to Bev McAndrew.

  The ANPR system had picked it up a little after two in the afternoon, careering out of the car park at Bradfield Central station. By the time they’d alerted BMP, it had traversed the city centre, heading out past the university towards Stradbrook Tower. Control had scrambled the nearest Traffic car, which had arrived in time to see two lads, heads covered by hoodies, jump out of the car and toss lighted petrol bombs inside as they fled.

  Flames filled the car, and before the traffic cops could even release their small fire extinguisher from its clips, it exploded with a low boom. It was such a regular occurrence that nobody so much as ventured out on to their balconies to watch.

  ‘There goes our trace evidence,’ Fielding said. ‘Wee fuds.’

  ‘But not at Tony Hill’s hand,’ Paula pointed out.

  ‘We don’t know that.’ Fielding scowled. ‘We don’t know what he told Carol Jordan to set in motion.’

  Paula fought to hide her scorn. ‘Carol would never destroy evidence,’ she said. ‘That would be a betrayal of everything she believes in.’

  ‘Isn’t that what working with Bronwen Scott is? You lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.’ Fielding turned on her heel and walked over to the sheepish traffic cops. ‘Find out who those wee thugs were,’ she said. ‘I want to know how they knew to steal that car.’

  Carol still wasn’t accustomed to wearing a visitor’s pass in a police station. It felt wrong to sign in when she arrived at Skenfrith Street, to have to wait till someone came to escort her past the front counter, to be confined to the places where she was led. At least she’d had the good sense to phone Bronwen Scott’s office and have them pave the way for her solo prisoner visit. It had, she suspected, saved her a degree of humiliation.

  While she was waiting in the tiny airless room they’d been in the previous night, Carol powered up her laptop and opened the details of the women in the death notices. She took out the photocopies of the news stories and set them down beside the laptop. Then she softly drummed the pads of her fingers on the blank metal flanking the mousepad. Realising what she was doing she stopped abruptly, cross with herself. There was no need, no reason, no point in nervousness. Whatever their history, there was no future for her and Tony. She was doing this simply to save Paula from being caught up in a career-wrecking miscarriage of justice. This wasn’t about Tony. Businesslike efficiency, that was what she needed now. Not twitching like a teenager.

  The door opened and Tony walked in. As with all prisoners held in police cells, his appearance had started the downward slide away from respectability. His hair was unruly and unkempt. He had a day’s growth of stubble, an oddly pathetic patchwork of dark and silver. He wasn’t young any more, she thought with a stab of sadness. Because that meant she wasn’t either. His clothes were crumpled and creased and he’d begun to look more criminal than the average citizen.

  His face lit up when he saw Carol on her own. ‘It’s good to see you,’ he said. ‘I’ve never had a problem with my own company, but time passes slowly when you’ve nothing to read.’

  ‘And no computer games to play.’ There was no lightness in her tone, no room to interpret her remark as friendly. ‘I looked through the newspaper archive. Obviously, it’s not definitive…’

  ‘But almost every family still puts a death notice in the paper. Undertakers steer them in that direction, and it’s a shortcut to let friends and workmates know the funeral details.’

  ‘And the Sentinel Times publishes photos in its online edition.’

  He grinned. ‘Of course. I wondered how you were going to weed out the blondes. I’d forgotten about that. Imagine what a miserable job that would have been until recently – calling up the recently bereaved and going, “Was your wife blonde? And was it natural?”’

  She couldn’t help a wry smile. She’d taken part in some crass inquiries over the years, because sometimes that was the only way to secure the information they needed. She wasn’t sorry about this particular forward march of technology. ‘So, there are two death notices and one news item that seem to me to fit the bill.’ She turned the laptop to face him and slid the photocopies across.

  He read everything through once, then repeated the process more slowly. He rubbed his chin, the rasp of his hand across the stubble clearly audible. Then he pushed the photocopies back towards Carol. ‘No death notice that corresponds to this?’

  She shook her head. ‘Not that I could find. Her parents live in York, though. So maybe it was in the local paper there.’

  Tony looked grim. ‘If it was, it will have been put there by her parents. Not by the husband.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘I think this might be the one.’

  ‘Why?’

  He shifted the laptop so they could both see the screen. ‘This one first. She had enough freedom to be out there playing darts in a pub. If I’m right, this guy is a control freak. He’s never going to let her out of the house with a bunch of other women to have a social encounter that doesn’t include him.’

  ‘That’s what I thought too. And the other death notice?’

  ‘Look at her family group. Five siblings and a football team of nieces and nephews. Obviously a close sibling group. A man as controlling as this wants his victim to be isolated, not at the heart of an intimate family group.’

  ‘We don’t know that they’re close,’ Carol objected.

  ‘We don’t, that’s true. It’s a reasonable assumption, though. But even if they weren’t, the killer I have in mind wouldn’t acknowledge their existence. He wouldn’t include them in the death notice at all. No, Carol –’ he stabbed the photocopies with a finger – ‘check this out. No death notice. No quote from the grieving widower.’

  ‘Maybe he was too grief-stricken.’

  Tony shrugged. ‘It’s possible. But look at this photo. She’s strung as tight as a bow string.’

  ‘Some people don’t like having their photographs taken.’

  ‘She’s posing with her kids. Most women are so concerned about how the kids are coming across and whether they’re behaving that they lose their own self-consciousness. I think she’s anxious. I’d go so far as to say scared. That’s the kind of expression you see on the faces of victims of abus
e. Terrified of putting a foot wrong, of provoking the rage that’s always just round the corner.’

  ‘I think you’re reading a lot into a photograph.’ Without even thinking about it, Carol had fallen back into her old patterns with Tony. She was the test-bed for his ideas. He threw them at her and she poked them and prodded them and pronounced them fit for purpose. Or not.

  ‘It’s one small part of a bigger picture, Carol. Who sets off after eleven at night with two small children to drive to York? To visit parents who are definitely past the first flush of youth and probably like to be tucked up in bed by then?’

  ‘It says there. She wanted to miss the traffic.’

  ‘If you want to miss the traffic, you leave at eight, not eleven,’ Tony scoffed. ‘You set off at eleven in the car with the kids because you’re in fear for your life.’

  There was a pause while Carol considered his words. Finally, she said, ‘It’s a long shot.’

  His shoulders slumped. ‘It’s always a bloody long shot. But it’s paid off more often than I have any right to expect. Carol, I’m penned up in this bloody awful place. I’m accused of two murders that I didn’t commit. If long shots are all I have, I’ll take them.’

  ‘I understand that. But it’s probably whistling in the dark.’

  The mask slipped and she caught a glimpse of his despair. ‘Carol, I need you to help me. For whatever reason, Fielding sincerely wants to nail me. And I don’t know anyone who has a better chance of getting me out of this mess than you. I know you still blame me for Michael and Lucy, but I didn’t hold the knife. Yes, I made a mistake. I set my focus too narrowly. And believe me, nobody could give me a harder time for that than I give myself. But I don’t think any reasonable person could have figured out what Vance’s agenda was at that point. I don’t believe there’s another profiler around who would have worked it out. I did my best and it turned out crap. Don’t think I don’t know that.’ His eyes were glistening with tears, his voice cracking with emotion. ‘Carol, you’ve been the most important person in my life since I first got to know you. I would take a bullet for you. I’d have taken a bullet for Michael, for your sake.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘Maybe not for Lucy, mind.’

  His words twisted in her gut like a knife. The dark gallows humour struck a chord in spite of her determination not to give him an inch. ‘Don’t be a smartarse,’ she said, surprised to find her own voice catching in her throat.

  ‘We all make mistakes, Carol. Sometimes they’re more expensive than others. But I don’t deserve to lose you,’ he said, spreading his hands in appeal.

  Abruptly she slammed the laptop shut and grabbed it. ‘I’ll check it out,’ she said gruffly, stumbling to her feet and heading for the door. She wasn’t willing to let him back into her life. Not now, not ever. No matter what he said. No matter how well he manipulated her emotions. And that was all that was going on here. It wasn’t real. Just Tony playing her for his own benefit. It didn’t change anything. Michael and Lucy were still dead. Well, she’d show him she was a better person than him. She’d do the right thing because it was the right thing. Not for his sake. For its own sake.

  Carol had no recollection of leaving the police station. The blur resolved itself as she reached the Land Rover. She climbed inside and leaned her forearms on the steering wheel, staring straight ahead, trying to recover herself. After a couple of minutes, she composed herself enough to take out her phone and send a message to Stacey:

  Everything you can give me on Gareth Taylor from Banham village. ASAP.

  Now it was simply a question of waiting.

  A moment’s inspiration was never enough in police work. Generally, it had to be followed up by the painstaking slog of asking questions and making checks. And then sometimes it paid off. Paula might have scored the credit for inserting the idea of a portable anaesthetic machine into the investigation, but it had taken a hardworking detective constable bashing the phones all day to come up with the strongest lead.

  He bounced up to Paula’s desk with all the abandon of a small boy who’s won a treasure hunt. ‘I’ve got a stolen portable anaesthetic machine for you,’ he said, waving a piece of paper at her.

  She couldn’t help feeling a lift in her spirits. Sometimes the slightest forward motion in an investigation felt like a giant stride. ‘Good work. Where was it nicked?’

  ‘There was an emergency services conference five weeks ago at Manchester University. They had an exhibition hall full of stands for equipment manufacturers. Everything from ambulances to satellite radios. And a company that makes portable anaesthetic units had one that went a bit too portable, if you get my meaning?’ He grinned at her as he handed her the details of the exhibition. ‘It went missing overnight from their stand. They’d been using it to demo how it works on site.’

  ‘Did they report it to us?’

  He shook his head. ‘The organisers persuaded them there was no point. They refunded their exhibitors’ fee, so the company weren’t out of pocket and the organisers didn’t have to deal with the embarrassment of having cops crawling all over their exhibition. That’s why it didn’t show up on our records.’

  ‘Fantastic. Well done. So, does anybody have any idea who might have nicked it?’ Even as she spoke, Paula knew it was too much to hope for.

  Now he looked crestfallen. ‘If they have any suspicions, they’re not letting on.’

  ‘Have you got a map of the layout of the exhibition?’

  His eyebrows rose in surprise. ‘Of course. No, I haven’t. I didn’t think of that. I’ll track it down.’

  ‘And a list of accredited attendees. One other thing – what about the gases that the machine uses? Did the thief get those as well?’

  He nodded. ‘Apparently the machine was loaded up with the real thing. Bloody stupid, if you ask me.’

  Paula sighed. ‘If you don’t expect to be a victim of crime, you don’t always take the sensible precautions. Still, nice work. Let me have a look when you’ve got that exhibition map. Plus a list of delegates and exhibitors.’

  He took off, bounce restored at the prospect of having something useful to do. Once the PC had done his job, she’d have to persuade Fielding to check whether it was possible that Tony could have attended the conference or the exhibition. Paula couldn’t help hoping he’d have a cast-iron alibi for the days in question. It was a pity she couldn’t reveal the ultimate source of this latest development to her boss. Demonstrating Tony’s usefulness to the investigation might remind Fielding of his value to BMP but it probably wasn’t the best way to improve Paula’s career prospects.

  63

  Stacey’s speed had always been a thing of beauty. Working at less than full stretch thankfully hadn’t blunted her skills. Within half an hour of Carol sending her text, Stacey had replied with a hyperlink to a cloud-based application. Tapping the link took Carol to the fruits of Stacey’s searches.

  Under Gareth Taylor’s name was a list: date of birth, National Insurance number, driving licence details, passport number, address, vehicle registration number, bank details and current account balance, and the name of his employer, Tellit Communications. He had no criminal record and a first-class degree in computer science. Photographs from his passport application and his driving licence were next. Then came a separate list of details for his late wife. A note from Stacey read, Can’t find a UK bank account. No employment history after marriage. NHS records for both coming later. At the bottom of the report, there was another note from Stacey.

  Tellit are more than just a mobile phone company. They deal in a wide range of electronic communication. Among their contracts are the comms system used by the ANPR cameras and also one of the main systems used by fire and ambulance services. Working for Tellit could give GT access to a vast range of data. His actual job seems quite low level for his skills. But sometimes the side benefits of data access outweigh that!

  Carol read the note with an increasing surge of excitement. A viable suspect. She didn’t know much
about Gareth Taylor, but already she had more belief in him as a potential killer than in Tony. She forwarded the link to Paula, adding a note: Check with ANPR for any sightings of Taylor’s vehicle near body dumps, or homes and workplaces of victims. Am going to stake out Tellit office/Taylor’s house.

  The address Stacey had supplied for Gareth Taylor’s workplace was on the other side of the city centre, so Carol decided to change car parks. But before she did, she called Stacey. ‘Brilliant job,’ she said as soon as Stacey answered. ‘Does Tellit have a staff car park?’

  ‘I’ll get right back to you.’

  Five minutes ticked past to the sound of Carol beating time on her steering wheel. Then her phone beeped. The text from Stacey read, No dedicated car park. But discount parking in Ramshorn Street multi-storey.

  Ten minutes later, Carol was cruising the car park, looking for Gareth Taylor’s red BMW. She found it on the third floor but she couldn’t find another slot with a view of his car. She sat for a moment with her engine idling, wondering what to do next. Now she knew where his wheels were, she could always leave the car park and set up outside. But she’d have to be careful where she chose. Leaving the multi-storey, drivers could turn left or right. If she parked facing the wrong way, she could be stranded, given the appalling turning circle of the Land Rover. Or she could circle round inside the car park, taking temporary station in areas that weren’t, strictly speaking, parking spaces.

  In the end, she settled for a side road a little further down the street. She could emerge quickly enough on his tail from there, she reckoned. The Land Rover was about as far from an ideal surveillance vehicle as it was possible to get, especially in the city centre, but the one advantage it possessed was its height. She could stay several cars behind Taylor and still remain in touch with his car. At this time of day, nothing moved faster than a crawl in town anyway, so it wasn’t like she was going to lose him at the lights.