Finally she saw some football goals up ahead, but – as she had expected – the field was deserted.
A sob broke free. Oh God, where was he? She forced herself to calm down.
‘The teachers would never have let Josh stay here on his own,’ she muttered to herself. ’It’s more than their pensions are worth.’
He would be safe. She just had to find him.
Beyond the football pitches she spotted another car park – much closer than the one she had used. There was a lone car parked there, not a car she recognised. She raced towards it. Suddenly the field was flooded with light as the car’s headlights came on, then went off. The driver was flashing her. She sped towards the car as fast as her failing legs would take her.
A man stepped out from the driver’s side and moved to stand in front of the car. He was backlit by the headlights, and all she could see was a stocky build, legs planted apart.
‘Mrs Taylor?’ he asked.
‘I’m Maggie Taylor, yes. How did you know?’
‘Because your son is in my car.’
Maggie stopped dead in her tracks. ‘Is he okay?’ She didn’t like this man’s tone.
‘He’s fine.’
‘So why hasn’t he got out of the car?’
‘Because he’s asleep, thank goodness. He’s been crying for nearly half an hour. He has it in his head that you’ve left him. I don’t know why – I didn’t ask – but maybe I should.’
Maggie was about to scream, ‘And what business is it of yours?’ but she recognised that this man was close to reporting her to social services.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘My husband usually picks Josh up, but he’s away. Josh sent me a text from my sister’s phone, but I thought I had to pick him up from school, so I went there.’
The man looked at her. His mouth was set in a tight line, as if he was disgusted with her as a mother. As well he might be, she thought.
‘Who are you, if you don’t mind me asking?’ Maggie said.
‘I’m Archie’s dad. He and Josh are in the same team.’
‘Where’s Archie then?’ Maggie’s suspicions were not yet fully allayed.
‘In the car. They played a hard match – and won, by the way.’
Maggie could hear the subtext – As you would have known, had you been here – but she had no idea what to say.
At that moment, the passenger door flew open and a little boy came hurtling across the grass. ‘Mum,’ he shouted and flung himself at her.
What were she and Duncan doing to this child that had made him so scared his mummy wouldn’t come and get him?
‘I’m so sorry, Joshy. I’m so sorry, sweetheart.’ She looked up at Archie’s dad. ‘I appreciate you looking after him like this.’
His face said, ‘Well somebody had to,’ but he kept the thought to himself.
‘Josh came over to my car with Archie. The coach isn’t one of their teachers, and I guess he thought Josh was with us, so he left. Anyway, no harm done.’
‘I can’t thank you enough,’ Maggie said, dropping her shoes so that she could reach out and shake his hand without letting go of Josh with the other arm. ‘You could have driven off and left him.’
The man barked out a laugh. ‘I don’t think many parents would do that. Do you?’
She forced a smile as they said their goodbyes. Maggie picked up her shoes, and she and Josh turned to make their way back to her car.
They had just reached the rugby field when she noticed it – or rather Josh did. He was looking towards the car.
‘Mum?’ he said.
Maggie followed his gaze. Her car was still slewed sideways in the car park, but it wasn’t alone any more. Beside it was a van. A white van.
And standing, one on either side, were two tall men. She knew then.
She knew they had come for her.
55
Since her interesting discovery that another person was trying to track down Michael Alexander, the search for him had leaped to the top of Becky’s priority list. The fact that he had disappeared without a trace had set off every alarm bell and convinced Tom more than ever that Alexander knew something about the murders twelve years ago. Whether he was involved now or not was a different issue.
Tom had spent hours with Becky looking at the details of the victims. If they accepted the theory that only one of the victims was important to the killers and the others were distractions, they had to try to work out which of them provided the key. Hayley Walker, the girl who Becky had mistaken for Leo – didn’t appear to have any enemies, as far as they knew. Michelle Morgan was a prostitute, but all the reports suggested that her pimp was devastated that she was dead, and the other girls said she never had a bad word for anybody. Or was the focus somebody else – another victim for whom there was a motive – a third victim? Would that third victim be Leo? Had she been abducted and held until they were ready to kill her, and if so, was Leo still alive? Or had her body not been found yet? Or would Maggie Taylor be the third victim, and if so, why?
Adam Mellor had met Leo, and it seemed highly likely that somebody driving his van was following Maggie Taylor. They all looked so much alike, it was as if the same person was being killed again and again.
Becky had started to flag. She had forced a couple of cans of Coke down in an attempt to keep going and now felt as if she was going to explode. She rubbed her stomach as she scanned the forensic report that Jumbo had sent through. It was disappointing. The shopping trolley the second victim had been found propped against had produced a plethora of fingerprints, as one might imagine, but they were mostly smudged. Those they had been able to isolate didn’t reveal much of interest. A couple were linked to people known to the police, but only for petty crimes. They would have to be followed up, of course. The trolley was riddled with DNA too – and germs, no doubt. Since reading an article a couple of years ago about the percentage of trolleys dirtier than public toilets, Becky had made sure she always carried wet wipes in the car to be used immediately after she finished shopping.
There was no useful CCTV footage of anybody stealing a trolley from the appropriate supermarket, and even if they nicked somebody for the crimes and their DNA was on it, a good lawyer would claim that the perp had done his shopping at the supermarket where the trolley had originated. The chances that he had used that very trolley were pretty slim, but the possibility might be enough to influence a jury.
Becky scoffed at the thought. The ways people got off crimes they had obviously committed had ceased to wind her up years ago. She just felt mild disgust that sometimes the bad guys left the dock laughing in the faces of the police.
Her thoughts were interrupted as her desk phone rang. ‘Becky Robinson.’
‘Hi gorgeous. It’s me.’
‘Hello, you,’ she said, a small smile playing around her lips. She had been a bit off with Mark for the last few days, which was completely out of order. All because of one hug from her boss. She felt ridiculous, like a groupie swooning over some pop star. Yes, Tom was sexy, and she couldn’t help noticing it from time to time. But she shouldn’t allow her childish fantasies to get in the way of a good thing, and she was going to make it up to Mark as soon as this case was over.
‘Listen, babe—’ he started.
Becky was quick to interrupt. ‘Mark,’ she said, drawing out the vowel sound in a warning tone.
‘Okay, okay. I know, "Don’t call me babe." I forgot, sorry!’
She smiled again. ‘Go on – what did you want to tell me?’
‘What, apart from the fact that you’re a sexy little thing, and I’ve got great plans for you tonight?’
This time she laughed. ‘Shut up, idiot. But thanks for lightening my day. If I manage to get away at a suitable time I’m looking forward to your plans already.’
Mark’s voice turned serious. ‘Well, if that’s true it might be better if I don’t tell you my thoughts on your case. You might not get home at all.’
‘What is it? Wh
at have you found?’
‘Don’t get too excited, Bex. It’s nothing specific, but it’s a line of enquiry I think you’ll want to follow. When I was at school, I did a project on the history of transport. I think that’s when I got interested in trains. Anyway, I remembered one of the names in the project was Tobias Mellor.’
‘With all due respect, Mark, I don’t think a school project thirty years ago is going to help.’
‘Shut up, smart arse, and listen. Knowing that somebody called Mellor is a person of interest to you, I looked old Tobias up again, and apparently he moved his investments from the canal to the railways when it became clear that the canal wasn’t going to be as commercially successful as everybody had hoped. So that might explain why your Mellor – who is the great-, great-, not sure how many greats grandson of Tobias, may have chosen Pomona and Mayfield for his dumping grounds twelve years ago, if indeed he is your perp. I’ve racked my brain to try to come up with other likely transport-related locations where they could keep a person hidden for a long period without discovery, but the obvious ones are no good.’
Tom had asked Becky to have Mayfield station checked as soon as he knew Leo was missing, but it was no longer the place it had been twelve years ago. The roof had been dismantled and planning permission granted to convert it into an entertainment venue, so it was obvious nobody was hiding Leo there. And there was nowhere to hide anybody at Pomona – well, nobody alive anyway.
‘There are a couple of choices I’ve discounted,’ Mark continued. ‘There’s the whole area around Victoria arches, under the train station, and there’s the tunnel created when the Manchester underground was being built – before it was abandoned. I don’t know if anybody would be able to get into either of those, even with Mellor’s skills and knowledge, and getting an unwilling human or a deadweight into the Victoria arches area would be nigh on impossible. Which brings me to the other option. At the time old Toby invested in the railways, he also put a considerable percentage of his fortune into cotton mills.’
Becky wanted to say, ‘Thanks for the history lesson, but cut to the chase,’ but she knew Mark was enjoying this, and she owed him a few minutes of her time at least.
‘Okay, so we all know that the cotton industry declined early in the twentieth century, leaving empty mills all over the place. But the Mellor family weren’t short of cash, so they hung onto them. A lot of them. Almost all of the mills have now been converted into apartments.’
She knew where he was going and wanted more then ever for him to reach the punch line.
‘But not quite all of them. I’m not sure how many are still derelict, but there are a few. You need somebody to do a proper check, of course, but I’ve looked up the name of Tobias Mellor’s company. It’s called Onerarias Holdings.’
‘Nice simple name, then,’ Becky said.
‘It means “freight” in Latin, apparently.’ Mark paused. ‘Does that help at all, sunshine?’
Becky detected a slight note of uncertainty in Mark’s voice for the first time, and she realised that for the last couple of days he must have been wondering if he had done something wrong.
‘It doesn’t help a bit, Mark,’ she said slowly, keeping her voice level. She paused. ‘It’s only bloody brilliant, and you are a superstar.’
‘All part of the job,’ he responded, but she could hear the smile in his voice.
‘No, it’s not. It’s your day off, to start with, and this has nothing to do with the British Transport Police.’
‘I meant it’s all part of the job as your man, babe.’
She knew he had added the word to wind her up, and she grinned as she hung up. But the smile only remained on her face for moments. This sounded like a good lead, and she needed to see Tom as soon as possible. In the meantime she was going to grab one of the team and get them started on searching for these properties.
56
Maggie twisted her head from side to side, searching for an escape route.
‘Josh,’ she said quietly and calmly, ‘we’re going to turn to the right now and head towards that hollow. The main road crosses there, so when I say run, we are going to run as fast as we can until we reach the road. Okay?’
She could feel her child’s body start to shake. ‘Okay,’ he whispered.
They veered off to the right, walking calmly. They had, by her reckoning, about four hundred metres on these guys. She didn’t think they would be able to catch them before they reached the main road.
Still walking calmly but quickly, she cast a glance over her shoulder. The men had started to walk towards her. As she looked, the taller of the two broke into a jog.
‘Run, Josh!’
Josh was a fit little boy and he could move, but these guys were tall with long legs. Beyond the rugby field and before the road there was a small wooded area, but the wood wasn’t dense enough to hide them. They were nearly at the road, though, and the men were still some distance behind, but to Maggie’s dismay she realised they were heading downhill, and the road was above them, higher up. They were going to have to scramble up a bank, and she knew she would be useless at that.
They ran on until finally there was nowhere else to go. The bank was a sheer climb with a fence at the bottom. It was a dead end. There were a few bushes, but nothing that would keep them hidden for long.
Josh grabbed her hand. ‘Come on, Mum – this way.’ Up ahead Maggie could see an opening under the road. It was a culvert – a wide circular pipe, some sort of drainage pipe, she presumed.
‘We can crawl through here,’ Josh said.
Maggie looked and knew she couldn’t do it. She might be able to get in, but she would have to go through on her belly. There was no space to turn, and if she got stuck… Just looking at it freaked her out.
‘Josh, you go. I’ll stay here – get rid of them. When you get to the other side, find somebody to help. Ask them to ring Auntie Suzy.’ Then another thought struck her. ‘Ask them to ring a policeman. He’s called Tom Douglas. Tom – like your friend from your old school, and Douglas like the road we used to live on. Go, darling. Go.’
Josh gave her a terrified stare, but he could hear the men crashing through the undergrowth, trying to find them. They wouldn’t be long. He turned and dived into the pipe, his elbows out, pushing him through. The men were close, but Josh was out of sight.
At the last minute Maggie had an idea. She took one of her shoes and threw it into the culvert then retreated behind a thick bush and crouched as low as possible – just in time.
‘Where the fuck have they gone? Search the bushes.’
‘No, look. There’s a culvert.’
Maggie couldn’t see what they were doing without revealing herself, but she imagined them looking into the open end of the pipe.
‘Shit! There’s one of her shoes in there. They must have gone this way. I’m going after them.’
Maggie stifled an audible gasp. Surely if she had had doubts about getting through the pipe, they would have no chance. But what if they did get through? Josh was on his own.
‘Don’t be fucking stupid. You won’t get your arse through there. I’ve got a better idea. Her car’s here, and they would have worked out we would never get through that pipe. They might wait until we’ve gone and come back. So you wait here.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘We can’t afford to screw this up. Michael’s been handed to us on a plate. Invictus won’t be happy if we don’t capitalise on what he’s given us.’
With that the man turned and started to jog back the way he had come, leaving the second man standing only feet away from where Maggie was hiding.
There was that name again: Invictus. He must still be involved. But what did they mean about Michael being handed to them on a plate? Was that when William set up the bogus meeting? Thank God Duncan was safe and she hadn’t persuaded him to come home with her.
For now, though, she had to wait. Maggie couldn’t outrun the man left to guard the culvert
. All she could do was pray that Josh had made it safely to the nearest house and that right now somebody was calling the police.
Josh wanted to cry but knew he mustn’t. What was it Mummy sometimes said? ‘Crying isn’t going to help anybody’? Well in this case she was right. He could sit down and cry, but then there would be nobody to help his mummy.
He was trying to remember what she had said about the man he had to call. His first name was the same as one of his old friends, but he’d had lots of friends. And the name of the road they lived on. That was a bit easier. That was Douglas, but he needed to remember the first name.
When he had pushed his way out of the pipe under the road he had found himself in a field. He saw a few rabbits but nothing else. The road was high above him, so he didn’t think he could get up there, and anyway the cars were going really fast.
At the far end of the field there were some new houses, but there were no lights on even though it was dark. Maybe nobody lived in them. They looked ghostly in what little light there was, their windows black and empty. There were piles of bricks everywhere and some big diggers. Josh didn’t like what he could see, but it seemed the best place to head for. Even if the houses were empty he could follow the road until he found somebody. He wished he had a torch.
He trudged across the field, thinking maybe he should run, but after the football and the running he wasn’t sure he could. Dragging his feet, he finally reached the place where the houses spilled into the field, and he could see what looked like a road. It wasn’t black like most roads; it was just rough bits of stone. The houses didn’t have doors or glass in the windows, and Josh heard himself whimper. It felt as if the houses were suddenly going to spring to life and move towards him, sucking his body into one of the gaping black doorways to eat him whole.
Tom Douglas Box Set 2 Page 58