by Chris Ewan
Shimmin set his jaw. ‘I told you to move on. To leave all that alone.’
‘You knew this might happen?’
He bowed his head. Looked down into the polished granite. I could see the thinning strands of hair on his skull. The patina of blotched skin beneath. ‘Nothing this bad.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
And I meant it, too. Not just because of the horror of what had happened to Teare. But also because I feared I was culpable to some extent. I was thinking about the phone call Rebecca had made to the number she’d obtained from the emergency control centre. Her impersonation of Teare and the denials from the man on the other end of the line. His abrupt end to the call. If he was somehow involved in Lena’s abduction, we’d given him Teare’s name. We might have led him straight to her.
Could the man Rebecca had spoken with have been the paramedic? I thought about telling Shimmin, but I didn’t think all that hard. It was obvious he’d been concealing things from me. That he’d worked to shut down the investigation into Lena’s abduction just as we’d suspected.
‘Did the paramedic kill Teare?’
‘Too early to say. But it looks like they were engaged in a struggle of some kind. Jackie’s hair and her T-shirt were damp. There was water on the bathroom floor. It could be he surprised her when she was about to take a bath. She must have gotten free and made it as far as the stairs. Looks like they fell together and the guy broke his neck. I don’t suppose Jackie had any fight left by then.’
‘Do you know who he was?’
‘No ID on the body. But we’ll find out.’
He looked like he meant it but I didn’t rate his chances. I was getting a clearer idea of the types of people involved in this mess now. I didn’t think they were average crooks or ordinary criminals. I thought they were trained professionals. Capable of anything. Maybe capable of having killed my sister.
‘Is this connected to Laura?’ I asked.
Shimmin glowered at me. He didn’t answer. Didn’t need to.
‘That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? Because you mishandled the investigation into her death. Because these people were involved somehow. And now you don’t want me shooting my mouth off. Making life difficult for you.’
‘That’s not why.’ His speech was deliberate. Like he was fighting to control his temper.
‘Then why all this talk about you not being here? You’re covering your back.’
Shimmin snatched up his coffee cup and drank greedily. He pulled a face and set it back down.
‘I’m meant to be on my way to the station. I called in the scene as soon as I found it. There’s a SOCO unit there now. I have to co-ordinate the investigation. Work out where we go with this thing next.’ He took a step forwards. Then he stopped himself. ‘I came here to warn you, is all. To tell you to leave this thing alone. Leave it to us.’
‘So you can bury it? Bury what happened to my sister?’
‘I’m telling you for your own safety. There are factors at work here we can’t control. People playing by their own rules.’
I paused for a moment. Absorbed his words. ‘Based on what you just said, I’m assuming you know what my sister really did for a living.’
‘Bare bones.’
‘My parents told you?’
‘Your dad.’
I drew a sharp breath and felt my ribs smart. It was something I’d been afraid of. Something I’d begun to suspect. My parents knew about Laura’s real job and they hadn’t told me, not even after she’d died. It was impossible for me to believe that Dad could know something like that about Laura and not share it with Mum. It explained how evasive she’d been when I’d asked her about Laura’s connection to Rebecca and it also explained why Mum had hired Rebecca to look into Laura’s death in the first place.
I can’t pretend it didn’t sting. They’d shut me out. And yes, they were probably trying to protect me. To shelter me from the questions that must have been plaguing them since Laura had died. Had her job had something to do with her death? Was her suicide all that it seemed?
I said, ‘You knew what the cottage was used for in the plantation, didn’t you?’
‘I had a sense of what could be up there. The characters who might be involved.’
‘My sister?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Did you have doubts about her death? That it was really a suicide?’
Shimmin pursed his lips. The muscles around his eyes tightened, shrouding them even more. ‘No doubts.’
‘You’re sure? Rebecca had some observations.’
‘What kind of observations?’
‘Mostly it was about where Laura crashed. Almost the whole of Marine Drive is edged by sheer cliff. But Laura went over where there’s a spit of land.’
‘Still a hell of a drop. She didn’t stand a chance. I’m sorry.’
‘What if I asked to see the autopsy report? What if I demanded to speak to the coroner?’
He raised a hand. Patted the air. I wasn’t sure if he was signalling for me to shut up or if it was just his frustration manifesting itself.
‘This whole thing is complicated enough already.’
‘So what are you going to do? Pretend none of it is happening again?’
‘I had my reasons.’
‘Tell that to Teare.’
I thought he was going to swing for me. He looked like he had it in mind. His shoulders had bunched. His right fist had tightened into a hard weight on the end of his arm. But he controlled himself. He held himself in. Then he growled in frustration and raised his eyes to the ceiling. Like he was searching for something there. Patience or forgiveness or strength of will. He shook his head, as if whatever he’d been seeking had eluded him.
‘I need to speak to Rebecca Lewis,’ he said.
I didn’t remind him that she’d been trying to speak with him during the past few days. I didn’t mention that he’d ejected her from his own police station. I just said, ‘I don’t know where she is right now.’
‘You didn’t arrange to meet up today?’
‘We hadn’t made any plans.’
‘So call her. Ask her what her movements are going to be.’
I climbed down off my stool and went into my bedroom to fetch my phone. When I returned to the kitchen, Shimmin had his notebook out, pen at the ready.
I dialled Rebecca’s number and listened to the phone ring. It kept ringing. I raised my eyebrows at Shimmin. Let it ring some more. I held my mobile against my ear until the ringing stopped and a flat tone replaced it.
‘No answer,’ I said.
‘Try again.’
I did as he said. I listened to the ringing. I listened to the flat tone. Same result.
Shimmin said, ‘OK, give me the number.’
I called it up on screen. Passed my mobile across to him. He copied the details into his pocketbook. Then he turned to the back and removed a business card. Plain white stock. Navy-blue font. It had the crest of the Manx Constabulary on the front of it. Shimmin’s contact details below. He laid the card on top of my phone and slid it across to me.
‘Call me if she gets in touch.’
‘OK.’
‘As soon as she gets in touch.’ He checked his watch. ‘I have to go.’ He seemed to hesitate, as if he was debating whether to take me with him. ‘I’m going to try and keep your name out of this. At least to begin with. I don’t know how that’ll go. I can’t tell you how long it might last. But I’m going to give it my best shot.’
‘How come?’
‘Because,’ he said, ‘your family has had enough on their plate just recently. And because, lad, I’m not the ogre you might take me for.’
He offered me his hand to shake. It was warm and cushioned. I watched him walk away down my stairs. Watched him walk out my front door. And all the time I was wondering why he’d go out on a limb for me. I was asking myself what was in it for him?
Chapter Thirty-eight
Lena lay curled on the pink d
uvet in the soundproofed room. Her stomach cramped and gurgled.
The pizza had been limp and greasy and barely lukewarm. But she’d been ravenous and she’d devoured it. And now her guts were squelching and squirming. Belching and burping. Perhaps it was just as well that the room was soundproofed.
Lena calculated that she’d been back inside the room for more than six hours. It was light outside but it was difficult to tell exactly how long the sun had been up because of the coloured film on the window glass. The radio news had said that it was two in the morning when the man had told her to return to the room. She could tell that he’d wanted to sleep. He needed her locked away before he could do that.
She’d tried communicating with the man over the pizza. She’d put her clothes back on, like he’d told her to, and she’d folded out the second deckchair and settled down opposite him. The man had slid a boxed pepperoni across the floor. Lena was a vegetarian, so she’d picked the slices of spicy sausage out of the cheese and tomato paste and piled them up inside the box lid.
‘How long will you keep me here?’ she asked.
The man didn’t reply. He acted like he hadn’t even heard the question.
‘When will you give me to the police? When will I be arrested?’
The man said nothing. He chewed his pizza in silence. A blank expression on his face.
‘Have you called my father?’
No response.
‘Why did they give me to you? They were going to give me to the police, but they changed their mind. Do you work with them? Do you work with somebody else?’
Finally, the man looked at her. He frowned. Inclined his ear towards the radio. Raised a grease-slicked finger to his lips.
Save your energy, his expression seemed to say. Don’t embarrass yourself. Just eat and keep quiet.
So she’d chewed her pizza and she’d drunk a litre bottle of lemonade and she’d settled back and listened to the orchestral music. Then the 2 a.m. news bulletin had come on. The same bulletin she’d heard an hour before. And the man had stretched and yawned and told her to get up, and then he’d locked her inside the soundproofed room.
She hadn’t slept. Not for one minute. Not for one second. She still felt groggy but she’d wanted to get a head start on her thinking. She had to think very hard. She had to be focused. She had to concentrate on her situation and find a weakness to exploit. There had to be one. There always was. And she had all the motivation in the world to find it.
She was still thinking, hours later, when she heard the lock thunk back inside the door. Then the door opened and another man filled the doorway. She’d seen this guy before, too. He was the driver of the car that had come to pick them up from the beach hut.
He didn’t look all that different from the man with the pizza. Sensible haircut. Plain, forgettable face. A white-and-brown check shirt tucked into a pair of pressed chinos.
‘Bathroom break,’ the man said. ‘And don’t bother getting naked. I’ve seen plenty better. Believe me.’
Chapter Thirty-nine
After swallowing a couple of pills, I went into my bedroom and put on my gym clothes – a pair of grey sweat pants, white sports socks and white trainers. Normally I would have worn an old T-shirt, too, but my shoulder injury wouldn’t allow it. I settled for ducking my head under my sling, then feeding my good arm through one sleeve of a hooded top and leaving my bad arm under the sweater so that the left sleeve hung uselessly at my side.
I searched around in the bottom of my wardrobe for my blue sports holdall. My dirty football kit was inside. It smelled bluntly of dried sweat and aged mud. Rocky came over from the corner of the room to sniff it. He didn’t seem impressed. I removed my kit and my spattered boots, bulking out the holdall with a couple of clean towels. Then I collected together a few other items and ducked down to Rocky. I freed the two keys from his collar and patted his head. The key marked NSC had a number on the reverse, just as I’d said. The number was 36.
When I stepped outside I found that Shimmin was huddled with my father on the lawn by the side of the conservatory. Shimmin’s left palm was open and he was stabbing it with the fingers of his right hand. Dad was nodding along, like he was agreeing with each of Shimmin’s points in turn. He didn’t seem to have any points of his own to raise. He was the listener. Shimmin was the talker.
I climbed into the cab of my van and tossed my holdall on to the passenger bench. I fired the engine and drove away in the direction of Douglas with Shimmin and Dad watching me in my mirrors.
There was a lot I hadn’t told Shimmin. I hadn’t told him about Erik Zeeger and Anderson. About the meeting in Erik’s jet and the likelihood of his men having been killed up at the plantation. About how they’d been hiding Lena and their reasons for doing so – both the ones they’d mentioned, and the ones they hadn’t. About the environmental campaigner who’d been killed. About the break-in to my home. And, most important of all, about the key Lena had given me.
Shimmin had been right about one thing, at least. The situation was complicated and I didn’t know who I could trust. I’d trusted my parents, but they’d shielded me from the truth about Laura’s life. I’d trusted Rebecca, but I had a feeling she knew more than she was letting on and I was still a little suspicious of her reasons for helping me. That was why I’d told her about the locker key – to gauge her reaction to the news and to see how much it interested her. It was also why I’d lied about the keys having been stolen along with my laptop.
And I wasn’t prepared to trust Shimmin just yet. I couldn’t tell if he had any real desire to get to the bottom of things, or if he just wanted to bury the loose ends as neatly as possible. The stakes were too high. The key could have the potential to unlock the entire mystery. Lena had entrusted it to me, and my sister had entrusted me to Lena. I wasn’t about to hand the key to anyone else. I wasn’t about to let go of it just yet.
*
Menser was slouched in the front seat of his car, parked along the street from the driveway of the Hales’ care home. It was a position he’d been in before, some weeks ago now, and not one he’d expected to find himself repeating. Things would have been a lot easier if he’d seen the brother back then. If only he’d known what he looked like, he would have recognised him when he appeared on the surveillance footage up at the cottage. He could have eliminated the threat before it had an opportunity to develop.
Chance. Coincidence. Menser didn’t believe in either of them. The brother was involved for a reason. Same thing with the private detective. The two of them were a complication he couldn’t afford. One he might have to eradicate. But not until he’d discovered what it was they were up to. Not until he understood what Laura Hale had hoped to achieve.
The windows were fully down on either side of him, letting in the damp morning air, but his eyelids flickered and his head lolled. He thought about stepping out of the car, but it was too risky. It was only an hour since he’d seen the male police detective arrive. At first he’d been alarmed, but then he’d calmed himself and considered what it could mean. It seemed to Menser that there were a couple of possibilities. One: the detective was there for a routine chat with the brother or his parents, something connected to the brother’s bike accident or Laura’s death. Two: the murder of the detective’s colleague had been discovered and the brother was being interviewed as a possible suspect.
On balance, Menser felt that the first scenario was more likely. It was just a few hours since the policewoman had been killed. The job had gone smoothly, with very little noise other than the sound of the woman and Clarke tumbling down the stairs together. Menser doubted it had been enough to alert a neighbour and the policewoman had told him that she was on a period of temporary leave, which meant she wouldn’t have been missed at work. And besides, if the bodies had been found and the brother was a suspect, the male detective wouldn’t have come on his own.
Menser relaxed, but only by a fraction. If experience had taught him anything, it was always to assum
e the worst. His superior was built the same way. That was why Menser had been ordered to dispose of Clarke. Odds were, Clarke was just a rookie making mistakes and bad decisions. But on an operation as sensitive as this one, mistakes couldn’t be tolerated – no matter how innocent they might appear.
Menser rotated the ignition key a quarter-turn and set the fans to Max, directing cool air towards his face. He clicked on the radio and tuned into a local station, hoping for a news bulletin. He doubted there’d be anything on the incident in Laxey just yet. Truth was, he’d come to enjoy the local news during his time on the island. Most of it was trivial, but that was a novelty he appreciated.
This time, though, his listening was interrupted. The snub nose of a white van emerged from the end of the driveway. The brother was behind the wheel. He was alone. He turned left and sped off downhill. Menser waited for a passing bus to thunder by him before pulling out from the kerb and setting off in pursuit.
*
Further back along the road, Anderson watched events unfold through the tinted glass of his windscreen. He saw Rob Hale drive away in his work van. He saw the balding man in the blue saloon pull out from the kerb. Anderson waited until the saloon had disappeared around the bend before nudging Lukas awake and accelerating after them.
*
The National Sports Centre is a glass and steel complex with a curving metal roof shaped like a wave. There’s a freeform swimming pool, with giant slides spiralling into the vaulted roof space above, and two lap pools with stadium seating alongside. There are a couple of sports halls, a lawn bowling complex, a squash centre and a well-equipped gym. I knew of at least three changing rooms, so there were a lot of possible locations for locker 36.
The main entrance to the sports centre has a revolving glass door and a reception area that overlooks the swimming pools on one side and a sports hall on the other. Outside the door are three car parks with spaces for a couple of hundred vehicles.
I didn’t plan on using the main entrance. I hadn’t spoken to Rebecca since she’d left my place the previous night and I had no idea what her movements were likely to be. But I knew how good she was. I’d seen her in action and I’d gained some insight into the way her mind worked. She believed the locker key had been stolen from my home. Chances were she’d assume that whoever had stolen it would come to the sports centre to try and access the locker. Therefore she might be watching. And if she saw me going inside, she was guaranteed to follow.