The Siren

by Alison Bruce

  Gary Goodhew hadn’t taken his eyes off her.

  She had pulled out a thick folder and begun to read an enclosed file.

  Goodhew had squinted harder and managed to pick out the shape of a familiar name.

  Goodhew.

  As he watched her looking at his notes, he had caught a fleeting glimpse of his initial job application and personnel photograph. Gully frowned as she flicked further through the pages.

  Goodhew didn’t understand why Marks kept staff files in his office. In fact that puzzled Goodhew even more than seeing Gully having a sly read of his personal information. And, of course, he was curious to know what she was looking for. He kept his own illicit information-hunting exercises strictly crime-related, and the results had frequently been sent to Marks in the form of an anonymous tip-off sealed in a plain envelope. He couldn’t think of any reason for her search – especially one linked to their current case – and he certainly hadn’t expected to see anyone else follow his personal covert methods.

  It was a weird thing for Gully to be doing, but he supposed she must have a reason. Good luck to her. He gave a wry smile, doubting that Marks would see it in quite the same indulgent light.

  He checked his watch. Damn, she’d been in there nearly ten minutes already. Surely there should be a bit more urgency? Perhaps she knew where Marks was and felt safe.

  Goodhew swung the telescope down towards the road leading to the car park, just in time to catch sight of what appeared to be the tail light configuration of Marks’ dark-red Mazda 406 swing into view. It disappeared towards its parking slot, but not before Goodhew had picked out the first four digits of its plate and positively identified it.

  He swung the telescope back up to Marks’ office. Gully had returned to the filing cabinet and was flicking through more files. Then, instead of closing the drawer, she turned back to his folder.

  ‘No,’ he hissed. ‘What are you doing? Shut the file, Sue.’ She turned slowly towards the desk and broke open the file midway through. This wasn’t the time for her to start reading anything new.

  He swung the telescope on to the brightly lit stairs. Marks was trudging up them towards his office.

  ‘Shut the fucking file and put it away,’ he shouted.

  But she’d taken out an envelope. And not any envelope but one of those he’d sent to Marks. He recognized the typeface and the white label positioned symmetrically on the front.

  On several levels this was now not a good situation.

  Goodhew grabbed his mobile and retrieved Gully’s number from its memory. He heard it ring as he watched her, but she didn’t move except to run her finger under the lip of the lightly sealed envelope. Shit. Her phone was off, or on silent. He kept it ringing, and willed her to pick it up. Suddenly she stirred, and pulled her mobile from her pocket. He watched her as she looked at the display. She saw his number, but clearly failed to recognize it. Then, finally, she answered.

  He forced a relaxed tone into his voice. ‘I was wondering whether you’re back at the station yet?’

  ‘Why?’ she replied cautiously, but started to move at once, closing the envelope again and placing it back in the folder.

  He tried to keep his voice casual. ‘I’m after DI Marks, and he’s heading back to his office right now.’

  She turned back to the filing cabinet.

  Goodhew paused long enough for Gully to stuff the file back into the drawer. She dithered for a second, glancing towards the door.

  ‘So?’ she said, moving away from the cabinet.

  ‘The key,’ breathed Goodhew.

  ‘What?’ she gasped and, like she’d received a kick from a mule, she shot back to lock it.

  ‘The key thing is that I get hold of Marks,’ Goodhew said smoothly.

  ‘Oh, OK.’ Gully gasped and stood behind the door like a frightened rabbit, not knowing whether to run for it or hide.

  ‘Perhaps you could leave a note on his desk for me,’ Goodhew added, and watched as Gully made it to the note block just in time to scribble a few words. Goodhew hung up even as the door opened behind her, and she turned round to face her boss.

  Involuntary blushing had one advantage, Gully realized. If you did it often enough, no one noticed when it was the result of something suspicious. She was red and sweating when Marks discovered her, but he didn’t seem overly surprised. ‘I thought you were with Kimberly, Sue.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I really needed a break, and PC Wilkes said she’d sleep over. Goodhew just rang, asked me to leave a note for you.’

  ‘That doesn’t explain why you’re here in the station.’

  ‘Well, I came here to leave you a note, too, just to explain where I was.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ Marks grunted and waited for her to add something.

  Her mind went blank. Shit, she obviously needed to say the right thing. She tried to look relaxed but, as far as her acting skills went, that involved casually returning Marks’ gaze with a fixed expression halfway between dazed and stupid.

  He was staring at her hand. Oh, shit . . . shit and fucking shit. She hadn’t put the key back in the desk. She watched as her own palm opened and she held it out to him, then spoke without any idea of what was about to come out of her mouth. ‘Found it on the floor,’ she said, feeling pleased that her subconscious had not for once entertained the concept of telling the truth.

  Marks gave her a sharp stare, but luckily this was overtaken by another look that said he’d prefer to take her excuse at face value. ‘Cleaners knocked it on the floor, I expect.’

  He paused, and she didn’t know whether she was supposed to stay or go. Don’t gabble, that would make her look like an idiot – only crap liars gabble. So she waited until Marks spoke again. ‘Kimberly Guyver will be making an appeal at a press conference first thing this morning. I’d like you to be there alongside her, of course.’

  Gully nodded.

  ‘You’re coping OK, aren’t you?’

  ‘I don’t feel as though I’m doing enough. I just sit and chat and keep her company, which isn’t helping us find Stefan Golinski, or Riley. And the worst part is that I don’t know what to say to her. It doesn’t feel like there’s much progress being made, but I can’t say that to her, can I?’

  ‘Firstly, Sue, it has been just over twenty-four hours –’

  ‘It seems a long time,’ she interrupted.

  ‘Twenty-four hours since they went, less than that since they were reported missing, and it is relatively easy for anyone to hide out for a couple of days. It’s after that, when they need provisions or get bored or complacent, that it becomes easier to find them. If Stefan Golinski is holed up with Riley, then he has to come out sometime.’

  ‘What if they’re dead?’

  ‘Well, it is possible, you know that – we both do. But it’s also possible that Riley is alive and at risk – and that’s exactly why our focus is as it is. Come back here first thing in the morning, and you can relieve PC Wilkes after the early briefing. We’ll need Kimberly Guyver in a coherent state, so don’t dwell in any way on the negative. Just concentrate on keeping her morale up, Sue.’ He patted her on the arm, and she knew he meant it in a supportive way, not a patronizing one.

  It encouraged her enough to speak out. ‘There was a man in Kimberly Guyver’s room last night.’

  Marks’ smile died on his lips. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I saw him.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me sooner?’

  ‘Because I think it was DC Goodhew.’

  ‘You think?’

  She took a deep breath and shook her head. ‘I know it was. I saw him climbing over her garden wall.’

  Marks laid his hand on her arm again, but this time he steered her towards the door. ‘I will deal with that. You just stick to the job at hand.’

  He closed the door behind her and she stood in the corridor, with shivers exploding like winter fireworks up her back.

  His final words echoed in her ears: ‘Say nothing whatsoe
ver, and stay away from him.’

  TWENTY-THREE

  Half an hour later, Goodhew closed the street door of his building and headed back to Parkside. He had watched the exchange between Marks and Gully, wishing he had some degree of lip-reading ability, or alternatively a bug in Marks’ office.

  The threads of the investigation were inside his head and aggravating his every thought. Meanwhile, the additional tangle caused by Marks and Gully had obliterated any possibility of further sleep.

  It was past 4 a.m. and he saw no one about; the moment was totally his own. He returned to his earlier thought that every square inch of his surroundings contributed towards the bigger Cambridge picture. A different question was where the city started and ended. Perhaps it started eight hundred years earlier, or as far back as the first Roman encampment; or maybe it started at the first houses that greeted travellers as they drove in on the A11 from London, and extended to the furthest reach of university land. It was all a matter of perspective and, while the team were mapping all the information they had in relation to Riley’s disappearance, Goodhew was starting to question whether they had gone back far enough, or cast their net sufficiently wide.

  He took a sheet of flip-chart paper and laid it flat on his desk. The timeline for Rachel’s murder and Riley’s disappearance was already documented, and he copied this information on to the sheet, using a fine-tipped marker. He started just about halfway down the sheet, and wrote each event on a separate line, spacing it out so that there was room to insert new details later.

  At the top of the page he listed the rest, starting with Kimberly’s and Rachel’s trip to Spain. He plotted their arrival, and then Nick Lewton’s disappearance. The dates they’d worked in the Rita Club, and when they’d returned to the Celeste. Riley’s birth, and the discovery of Nick’s body

  There were gaps and questions, but there was also a clearer picture forming.

  Jay’s assault had occurred on 2 March 2007.

  Nick’s disappearance nine days later, on 11 March.

  Riley’s birth on 14 November 2007.

  Nick’s body was found on 4 June 2010.

  The Golinski house burns down on 11 June.

  ‘Good morning, Gary.’ DI Marks was sitting there at the next desk, just like he’d teleported in from nowhere.

  ‘Good morning, sir.’

  ‘Talk me through it.’

  ‘Something must have led up to Rachel Golinski’s murder and the fire. Now, if Stefan Golinski is responsible, it’s either down to a build-up of problems in their marriage or a sudden trigger. So, either way, looking into their background is going to matter.’

  ‘And Riley?’

  ‘There are plenty of killers who would baulk at the murder of a small child, but, once he’s been abducted, Stefan’s stuck with him. Riley would be able to identify him.’

  ‘Unless it’s not Stefan?’

  ‘In which case, why would the killer not just dump Riley somewhere?’

  Marks frowned. ‘We know all this.’

  ‘Yes, but we’ve been concentrating on the timeline of the last few days, simply because of the urgency of finding Riley. What if the trigger for all of this is much older? So I’ve gone back to include the time that Kimberly, Rachel and Stefan spent working for the Lewton family and living in Spain. And look what we get . . .’

  Goodhew took Marks through the sequence of events. ‘The attack on Jay and Nick’s disappearance occurred within a fortnight of each other. And very close to the time that Riley was conceived. As both men had had a relationship with Kimberly Guyver, it would be one big fat coincidence if there was no connection whatsoever. Then, within days of the discovery of Nick Lewton’s body, other people connected with Kimberly and the Lewton family start to die.’

  ‘And you’re thinking that it’s more logical if it all fits together somehow?’

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes and no. You’re talking about two deaths and one assault taking place across a three-year period. One beaten, one possible RTA, and a suspected shooting – so no similarity in MO and no clue as to motive. If I could see some link that wasn’t totally circumstantial, I think I’d be very interested.’

  ‘You said “yes and no”?’

  ‘Yes, I can see why it would make more sense if it was all connected. You arrived here at just after four, and have been piecing this together for the best part of two hours. You’ve merely added detail that, at most, will be useful. But it’s still a ‘no’ because there’s no proof. Nick Lewton’s death could still turn out to be the result of an accident, and the Jay Andrews assault was just random drunken thuggery.’

  Goodhew nodded. Having all the information from the start of an investigation was an impossibility; lab tests took time, companies could be slow at releasing records, and some vital witnesses were often still unaware that they’d seen anything of any importance. So the first few vital hours were overshadowed by data holes, black spots that caused resources to be misdirected and opportunities to be lost. Marks was right, it was all too easy to guess what those gaps in the picture might be.

  Marks was meanwhile wearing an expression that said he was waiting for Goodhew to say something else, something specific.

  ‘I’m still trying to locate the owner of that ‘pay as you go’ mobile . . .’ Goodhew began, but immediately realized that he wasn’t on track. Still, he carried on. ‘I have a description, and I think I have his baseball cap. It’s gone to the lab, so if we have his DNA, and if he’s on the system, hopefully we can locate him that way.’

  When Marks spoke again, his voice was quiet but with a cold and sarcastic edge. ‘Well, I hope we find him first. Otherwise that’s a lot of “ifs”.’

  Goodhew found himself glaring. ‘I believe I will find him.’

  ‘Is there anything else you would like to tell me?’ Marks glared back, but with far more practice.

  Goodhew shrugged. ‘Like what?’

  ‘If there’d been a rumour about your conduct?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or an accusation of inappropriate behaviour?’

  Goodhew had never been susceptible to outbursts of temper, preferring to stay several emotional layers away from transparency. He now forced a couple of slow breaths through the rising anger. ‘What inappropriate behaviour?’

  ‘You were spotted in a witness’s bedroom.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘How many witnesses do you have to choose between?’

  ‘No, I mean who saw me?’

  ‘So you were there?’ Marks’ expression was impenetrable.

  Goodhew hadn’t been in her bedroom, just as far as the flat roof outside her window. He knew that choosing to home in on the most literal interpretation of the truth could cause trouble later. But, at this moment, later was convenient.

  ‘No, I wasn’t. I meant, who said that I was?’ Goodhew looked across the room and his gaze fell on to Kincaide’s desk. Had Kincaide followed him back to Kimberly’s house? It was more likely, though, that Gully had seen him, and then Gully had told Marks after he’d caught her in his office. ‘Actually, sir, it doesn’t matter.’

  Had she really thought there was anything ‘inappropriate’ going on between him and Kimberly? Had she really thought that there was some dark secret hidden in Marks’ office?

  Strangely his attention stayed fixed on Kincaide’s empty chair, until Marks spoke again. ‘You and I have both been awake for most of the night. I don’t, therefore, want to make any decisions that are tainted by tiredness and over-emotion. But I do need some kind of response from you, before you’ve had too much chance to cook up something feasible.’

  Marks leant back and waited for Goodhew’s next move. Goodhew had no idea about playing chess, but he suspected that Marks already had his game plan. Goodhew’s own game was backgammon: he was used to throwing the dice and hoping for a decent roll.

  ‘If I were you, sir, I’d consider whether the person involved in reporting this might have an ulterior m
otive. Or whether they’ve been led to false conclusions by a third party.’ He stopped short of making any further denial about visiting Kimberly’s bedroom; realizing that it was the same sort of fine line that separated smoking from inhaling.

  Marks steepled his two index fingers together to form a point, then rested them against his lips. ‘A diversion?’ he murmured, eyes half-closed. ‘Hmmm.’

  Goodhew was just wondering whether he’d thrown a double six, when Mel opened the door. She was in early. He glanced at his watch and realized that the time had slipped beyond 7 a.m. and the night had moved on elsewhere without causing any further damage.

  She addressed Marks. ‘Dr Sykes is here. Can he come in?’

  Marks straightened. ‘Of course.’

  She held the door for Anthony Sykes, waiting a few seconds longer than she needed, and using them to make eye contact with Goodhew.

  He smiled. She smiled.

  Who said the art of communication was dead?

  He watched the door close behind her and realized he was still fixating on its scuffed paintwork as Marks reeled his attention back into the room.

  ‘I worked through the night to finish this,’ Sykes declared as he opened his briefcase. ‘Thought I’d drop them off so you could see them as soon as you were in.’ He placed a couple of sheets of paper on the desk, then continued to rummage through his briefcase, adding more pages as he found them. ‘It’s better that you’re here, though, so I can talk you through them right away.’ He closed the case, then looked at Marks, then Goodhew. For someone who had also been up all night, Sykes seemed unnaturally bright-eyed. ‘If you two sit close together, I can show you both at the same time.’

  He waited until Goodhew had finished moving his chair, then, with a flourish, produced the first photograph. ‘Here we have a photograph showing the head as you first saw it, with that damage at the rear of the skull.’

  He moved on to the second shot, which focused on the back of the head. ‘The cavity measured eleven centimetres across and was situated just above the top cervical vertebra. I was initially looking at the possibility of a bullet, probably about nine millimetre calibre, having entered through the front of the face.’