Tom Douglas Box Set 2

by Rachel Abbott

  ‘Maggie? I thought you were going to phone me back. What the hell’s going on?’

  ‘Oh shit, it’s you. Sorry, Suze. I should have called you, but I’ve got a bit of a situation here, and I need to keep the line free.’

  ‘What’s the matter? What’s happened to Duncan?’

  For some reason, she couldn’t tell Suzy. Not yet. It would make it real; she would cry again; the children would see her. She made every excuse she could to herself, but deep down she knew that she couldn’t at this minute tell anybody – even Suzy – that her husband had left her without saying goodbye.

  ‘I’m sorry, Suzy, but I can’t talk now. We’ve got thick snow, and both the children are at home, so now isn’t a good time.’

  ‘But what about last night? Why were the kids alone?’

  ‘Please, sis, don’t ask me to explain right now. I promise I’ll call you tonight when the children are in bed. If you don’t hear from me, everything’s okay. I’ve got to go – Lily’s shouting.’

  Lily was in fact about to open the back door. She didn’t know how to enter a room quietly, and Maggie knew she would notice the tears running down her mummy’s face, and shout it out for Suzy to hear.

  Maggie disconnected before her sister could say another word, and quickly scraped the sleeve of her jumper across her eyes.

  ‘Was that Daddy?’ Lily said, skipping across the kitchen floor in her socks, having discarded her wellies at the door. Maggie was excused the need to reply as Lily shouted, ‘Ooh, the floor’s all wet. Oh yuk, Mummy. I’ve got soggy feet.’

  The phone rang again. It was bound to be her sister with some more questions. Maggie was about to ignore it, but Lily was heading towards it with great glee. She loved answering the phone, but Maggie didn’t want Suzy questioning her niece so she grabbed the phone.

  ‘Look, Suze, I promise I’ll call you back if I need you. Please, can we keep the line free?’

  There was a silence at the other end, and for a moment it felt as if ice was blowing down the wire. Maggie shivered.

  ‘Hello, Maggie?’ a voice said. It was a voice that she didn’t recognise, but the tone was oily, slick.

  ‘I’d like to speak to your husband. Get him for me, would you?’

  ‘May I ask who’s speaking?’ she answered, hearing a slight tremor in her voice.

  ‘No, you may not. Is he there?’

  ‘I’m sorry, he isn’t. Can I take a message?’

  ‘He’s not answering his mobile, and that’s not good enough,’ the man said, his words clipped. There was an undercurrent to the voice that she had heard so many times in the voices of her clients. It was the sound of threat.

  ‘Well, maybe I can ask him to call you,’ she said, trying to pretend that this was all perfectly normal.

  ‘He’s not coming home, though, is he Maggie. He’s run – run from his obligations. Again.’

  Maggie didn’t respond. She didn’t know what the man was talking about, and she stared down at Lily, her gaze fixed, her heart pounding. She was waiting. For what, she didn’t know, but she knew it wasn’t good.

  ‘I’m glad I’ve found you, Maggie. It makes it all so much more worthwhile. Your husband has had his first warning. If he calls, remind him of that, and be sure to tell him we know where you live. Do you understand? We know where you live. Tell him.’

  The phone went dead.

  14

  It was minutes since the call had ended, but Maggie was still holding the phone, looking at it as if the answer lay there. What did the man mean?

  He had said, ‘I’m glad I found you.’ Did that mean he had found her. Or found them? Or did he mean he had found Duncan?

  ‘If he calls…’ he had said.

  What did he mean about running away from his obligations – again? Did the man mean he had run away from her? Was she – or his family – an obligation?

  Finally, Maggie slowly replaced the receiver, and without conscious thought made her way across to a chair and sat down heavily, her eyes unfocused.

  Vaguely she was aware that Lily had been saying something, but the little girl had obviously given up on her mummy and gone back outside because the kitchen was now quiet. Quiet enough for her to think.

  She grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil and wrote down what she remembered of his words. The words themselves seemed fairly innocuous. They could almost have been the words of a disgruntled customer. But it wasn’t the words that had made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end; it had been the tone of his voice.

  There was no doubt at all in Maggie’s head that this was a threat, and she sprang to her feet, rushed to the back door and called the children into the house. She didn’t want them out of her sight for a moment.

  The children didn’t understand why they couldn’t stay in the garden, but she silenced them by saying Josh could download a new game for his console and plug it into the TV in the study and Lily could watch Frozen for about the fiftieth time in the sitting room after lunch. Bolting all the doors, including the one from the garage into the house, her mind spun through all the different options.

  What had Duncan done?

  From nowhere, an answer hit her. If Duncan had run off with another woman, it must have been the woman’s husband on the phone. And he was after Duncan. It was the only thing that made sense.

  And yet somehow it didn’t.

  What else could it be? A debt that he hadn’t paid, maybe? She had known of some dreadful crimes committed against people who owed money. But surely he would have told her? They had some savings – money for the renovation of their house – they could have used.

  She could develop any theory she wanted, but the truth was she didn’t know, and the uncertainty was unbearable. She could face the truth, she was sure – if only she knew what the truth was.

  Maggie picked up the phone and dialled.

  ‘Suzy,’ she said when her sister answered, ‘I need to talk to you. I’m sorry about earlier, but I didn’t think I could speak right then – not even to you. I’ve come unstuck, though, and – ’Maggie’s voice broke ‘ – I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘Hey, don’t cry, Mags. Tell me. Let’s see if there’s something I can do to help.’

  ‘It’s Duncan. I think something might have happened to him.’

  ‘What sort of thing? Is it something to do with last night?’

  Maggie took some deep breaths and tried to control herself. ‘I don’t know where he is.’

  Somehow Maggie managed to stumble through most of the story of the last few hours.

  ‘He’s having an affair. I know he is.’

  ‘That’s a bit of a leap, Mags,’ Suzy said.

  Maggie was about to tell her sister about the photo on Duncan’s phone and the threatening call, but the sound of her mobile ringing in the next room set her pulse racing.

  Duncan. It had to be.

  She quickly ended the call with Suzy, promising to call her over the weekend and dashed into the hall. As she got there, the ringing stopped.

  ‘Shit!’

  She grabbed the phone and stared at it as if by some magic it would ring again. The screen said number withheld. She wanted to throw the phone at the wall. It had to have been Duncan, and she had missed him.

  She sat down heavily on the bottom step of the stairs, rested her folded arms on her knees and dropped her head.

  15

  12 years ago – May 15th

  The television news was showing photos of dark-haired beauty Penelope Cruz arriving at the Cannes Film Festival, and Tamsin Grainger stared at the screen hoping to catch a glimpse of the actress’s current boyfriend, Tom Cruise. She was out of luck.

  With one eye on the television and one on the mirror, she continued to apply her make-up, going a bit heavier on the eyes than usual.

  Tonight was going to be the party of the year. Tamsin could feel it, and she wanted to look her best. Especially now she had rid herself of that wanker who seemed to think he was th
e love of her life. What a prick he had turned out to be. A good-looking prick, though, she had to admit.

  She had never said they had an exclusive thing going – she was having fun, and nothing was going to interfere with that. Maybe messing about with that lecturer had been a bit stupid, but at least it might get her some good marks in her next exam.

  Tamsin giggled. Of course, the word had got out that she was up for a good time, and she was getting more than her fair share of offers now. Some crazy guy was leaving her email messages saying what he wanted to do to her. She liked his inventiveness and hadn’t discouraged him.

  She didn’t know how he knew her webmail account – hardly anybody did, but somehow he had found it. She didn’t understand technology that well, but she knew enough to realise she wouldn’t want some of her more juicy messages to come back to haunt her in a few years’ time when she was a respectable woman married to some rich man who knew nothing about her past. So she deleted every single one of his messages from the university terminals she was forced to use because her dad was too tight to buy her a laptop.

  Tonight the email guy said he was going to reveal himself to her. She didn’t know exactly what he meant, but it sounded good. All she knew about him was that – in his words – he was a big man. She wasn’t sure what that related to either – tall, fat, or something else entirely. She giggled again.

  She was dressed for the occasion in a crop top and some tight white jeans. The trouble was, how was she going to know it was him?

  The party was in full swing when she arrived, so she headed straight for the centre of the room where she could be easily spotted and started to dance. She didn’t want him to leave because he couldn’t find her.

  Tamsin looked around to see who was watching. The truth was, a lot of guys were looking at her. Girls too, but not in the same way. She didn’t care. She didn’t much like girls anyway.

  As the night wore on, she began to think he wasn’t coming. She didn’t even know his name. Her dancing grew increasingly frenzied as she became more and more desperate.

  And then she saw him. It had to be him. Tall, blond, and way too refined for this party in his smart white shirt with a button-down collar. Gorgeous, though.

  She threw him a smile and then spun round to dance with her back to him. Make him work for his treat. She felt a hand on her hip. She didn’t turn but backed up slightly so she could feel the warmth of his body through her thin top.

  She felt his breath on the side of her neck and shuddered. He smelled good.

  ‘Tamsin,’ the man said, ‘there’s somebody waiting for you. He’s outside.’

  She turned then and looked at the man in front of her.

  ‘It’s not you?’ she said, disappointment clear in her voice.

  ‘No, no,’ he said. ‘He’s outside, waiting for you. Hurry now. He won’t wait forever. His name’s Sam.’

  16

  Tom was grateful that the pathologist had agreed to wait ten minutes to give him time to knock back two cups of strong black coffee, although whisky would have been better. He wasn’t looking forward to the next hour or so, but finally he was ready to go and watch this woman who looked so like Leo being cut open, all of her internal organs removed, weighed and examined. It wasn’t going to be easy. He knew it wasn’t Leo – and he kept saying that over and over to himself – but she was so much like her that he had to cast his gaze back repeatedly to where that tiny scar should have been and focus on the differences between the two faces.

  There was little doubt about the manner of this woman’s death. They still had no idea who she was, though, and the artist was waiting to draw her so an appeal could be launched on the TV and in the press. Somebody, somewhere, was bound to be missing this young woman.

  The pathologist turned to Tom and spoke through his mask.

  ‘We cleaned the body externally before you were allowed to see her, as you know. I would say it’s unlikely that she’s been raped. There’s no external bruising, but of course I’ll need to do a full internal examination to be sure. Before we do any more work on her, there’s something I’d like to show you.’ He beckoned Tom closer. ‘I don’t know if it’s significant, but these marks were made after she was killed.’

  The pathologist asked one of his assistants to move to one side, and Tom saw the long, lean, naked legs of the woman. She was obviously fairly fit, and from the colour of the skin of her thighs it would appear she had recently had some winter sun. But it wasn’t the skin or muscle the pathologist was keen for Tom to see. Carved into the top of the woman’s left thigh were three straight horizontal lines about four inches long. They were deep, and yet there was no blood.

  ‘I’ve no idea what they mean, Tom, but it would seem that her jeans were pulled down after her death solely for the purpose of carving these lines. Her jeans were then refastened. As I say, there’s no sign of sexual trauma up to now, but these marks were definitely made after she was killed. It’s as if they’re a message of some kind. Do they mean anything to you?’

  Tom was only half listening. He was in a different time, a different place, looking at the same three lines carved into a young girl’s thigh, and not for the first time.

  12 years ago – May 17th

  The nine days since the discovery of Sonia Beecham’s body at Pomona Island had been both intense and frustrating. Progress was negligible and Tom couldn’t help feeling they were missing something. But Victor Elliott had his way of doing things, and he was not impressed by anyone in his team using their initiative if it in any way reflected badly on him.

  Tom had been hoping that tonight might be the first night since Sonia’s murder that he would be able to get away on time, and if the call had come in fifteen minutes later, this latest shout would have been somebody else’s responsibility. He was torn between the familiar buzz of a new job and the realisation that it was going to be another late night. Once again he was going to have to phone his wife and make his apologies.

  Right now, though, there was nothing he could do about it, so he parked his car and headed towards a uniformed policeman standing in front of a temporary-looking corrugated iron fence. The young PC nodded at Tom and slid back a section of the fence to let him through into one of the hidden parts of Manchester that few people knew existed.

  The disused section of Piccadilly railway station known as Mayfield station was a favourite location for television crews. Where else could companies find a ready made set for post-war dramas? Tom climbed the wide staircase that rose from street level to the platforms. He glanced at the massive Edwardian buffer stops terminating tracks that had long since been removed, leaving deep pits full of weeds and detritus. The original glass sections of the roof were mostly gone, lying in pieces that had either fallen or been kicked onto the sunken track beds, and Tom and the rookie detective constable who had been waiting for him to arrive picked their way carefully along the abandoned platform, trying to avoid the broken glass and the worst of the drips coming from what was left of the roof. A pigeon flapped its wings suddenly, making the young female detective nearly jump out of her skin.

  ‘Bloody horrible place,’ she whispered as if scared of waking the living dead. ‘Why’s it still here? It’s the obvious place for every down and out in Manchester to hang out.’

  ‘I think you’ll find there are better places once you get to know the area,’ Tom said. ‘Watch out for the rats, though.’

  ‘What?’ The young detective looked momentarily embarrassed, as if it was inappropriate for her to be scared of anything. She was one of the chosen few on the fast-track scheme and was working for a brief period in CID.

  He smiled sympathetically at her. He wasn’t a big fan of rats himself, but the only time he had been here before today something had spooked the rat population, and thousands of them had come pouring out of holes everywhere in the station, leaping up from the sunken track beds and charging towards the staircase and escape. The rats hadn’t bothered the humans in their midst; the
y had swarmed around them like a dark grey sea flowing past a rocky outcrop. He shuddered as he remembered.

  ‘They’ll keep out of our way. Don’t wander off on your own if you don’t like them.’

  Tom knew little about this case as yet – just that they had a body, it was female and it was almost certainly murder. His second in ten days. First Sonia Beecham and now this. They hadn’t been able to find one piece of evidence that pointed to Sonia’s killer. She had, so it seemed, been a quiet, unassuming girl who took her studies seriously. She hadn’t been in a relationship either at the time of her death or for at least six months previously, and nobody could think of a single reason why anybody would want her dead.

  Tom’s boss, DCI Victor Elliott, would be on his way to Mayfield station by now and would technically be the senior investigating officer on this case. He wouldn’t do any of the hard work, of course. He spent too much time trying to impress the powers that be, striving towards his goal of becoming Chief Constable before he was fifty.

  Tom pulled on a protective suit and mask, lifted the flap of the tent erected by the SOCO crew to protect the body and crouched low to step into the confined space. The victim was propped against the red-brick wall, her arms folded across her chest. A SOCO was kneeling to one side, bending over her. The victim appeared to be fully dressed, although that wasn’t saying much. It was still only May, but she was in tight white jeans and a crop top. Had she been out in Manchester dressed like this, or had she been plucked from her home and brought here after she was killed? Tom felt certain that the body had been positioned after death.

  As he bent closer, he noticed something on her left leg, the leg that was further away from him. Tom asked the man in his white Tyvek suit if he would move to one side so he could get a better angle, and he bent over the girl’s thigh. Her jeans had been cut, and Tom pulled back the flap. Etched into the skin were three horizontal parallel lines.

  ‘Carl,’ Tom said to the head of the SOCO team, ‘have you seen the leg?’

  Tom couldn’t see the man’s expression because of his mask, but he saw him nod. His voice was muffled.