by Neil White
‘Am I this easy to find?’
‘You were only ever going one way,’ she replied. ‘Can I join you?’
He wanted to say that he’d rather be alone, but it wasn’t true. ‘It looks like you already have,’ he said.
Gina went to the bar to get a drink. She returned with a glass of wine and put her suit jacket over the back of the chair. As she crossed her legs, her skirt rode up, revealing toned and bronzed legs. Two men at the bar glanced over. Gina was fifty-three and she looked great.
‘You all right?’
He closed his eyes as he fought the urge to tell her about Mark Proctor, about his long-held promise to kill Ellie’s murderer. She would stop him, tell him to call the police, but that didn’t seem enough. He’d never wanted an arrest. He wanted revenge.
‘Yes, sorry,’ he said. ‘Just not feeling myself today, that’s all.’
‘Mark Proctor said he thought you were going to throw up last night.’
Joe didn’t respond, so Gina said, ‘What is it, then? A bug or something?’
‘Must be.’ He smiled, although it was thin, never reaching his eyes. ‘I’ll be fine, don’t worry. What did he say about his car?’
‘Nothing much. He wouldn’t go into details. I probed but he didn’t seem keen on sharing. If the police want to interview him again, he’ll need to stay silent.’ She frowned. ‘It’s a weird one, though. Why would he break into a compound to steal back his car, only to torch it?’
‘You’re the ex-detective,’ he said. ‘Why do you think?’
‘Because he had something to hide? His car was pulled over and impounded because it was uninsured. If there was something in the car he didn’t want to be found, why not just get some insurance and remove it?’
‘What was his car worth, though?’ Joe said. ‘A couple of grand? He’d rack that up in fees at the compound fairly quickly, so he’d never get to keep the car. It might just have been spite, nothing more, that he wouldn’t let them have it.’
‘He could have just walked away from it,’ Gina said. ‘They wouldn’t get their money at all then. It would become just scrap value.’ Then she laughed. ‘But since when did our clients do anything sensible? They wouldn’t be clients if they did.’
‘Don’t you think that Proctor is different to our normal client?’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘I don’t know…’ Joe paused. ‘There’s just something about him that I can’t quite work out.’ He took a drink and stared at the table.
‘So what’s on your mind?’ she said.
‘Perhaps I’m just feeling reflective.’
‘You don’t do reflective, Joe. You work hard and then you have fun. You’re a two-mood man. This is something different. You came here with the look of a man determined to get drunk.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘I’d like to think it’s your love life, but you don’t have one, as far as I know.’
That made Joe smile, despite himself. Gina played the part of a scolding big sister. ‘I do all right,’ he said.
‘Whatever happened to that pretty prosecutor? Kim?’
‘She made up with her fiancé. She’s getting married next month.’
‘That’s a waste,’ Gina said. ‘I thought you were good together.’
‘We were all about bad timing,’ Joe said. ‘I see her at court. We’re friends, but that’s all it will ever be.’
‘Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard the mantra, that you don’t do infidelity, even where you’re just the bit on the side.’
‘It’s more complicated than that,’ he said. ‘I’m at a difficult age.’
Gina laughed. ‘I wish I was at the same difficult age. Try mine.’
‘I’m thirty-five,’ he said. ‘It seems like everyone is either attached or has children.’
‘Is having children that bad?’
‘No, of course not, but I can’t just drift into their life and then out again. Uncle Joe shows up for a few weeks and then he’s gone.’
‘God forbid you actually fall in love with someone,’ she said. ‘And you’re not in here because you’re moping about your love life. I brought that up. It’s something else.’ A pause. A tilt of her head. ‘Talk to me.’
Joe took another drink, the beer going down too easily, leaving foamy rings on the glass. ‘I’ve been thinking about Ellie today, that’s all.’
‘You think about her all the time. Why has it brought you down today?’
‘Sometimes it just does.’
‘Okay, I think I understand,’ Gina said. ‘I’ve never lost a brother or sister like that, but I can imagine how it never goes away.’
‘It’s not the pain,’ he said. ‘That fades in time, like a nerve that hurts only when something jabs it unexpectedly. No, it’s the anger that never fades. The injustice, that whoever killed her is still out there, that he hasn’t paid for what he did.’
Gina flushed. ‘I’m sorry about that. I’ve gone over and over it so many times in my head, but honestly I can’t think of anything we missed.’
Joe reached out and put his hand over Gina’s. ‘I’ve never blamed you for not catching him. Not once.’
‘Thank you, Joe, but I blame myself, only because I can’t change it, and you deserve for it to be so different.’
‘There is one thing, though,’ he said. ‘Time has passed and I can handle things better. I want you to be honest with me about something.’
‘Go on.’
‘Was there ever a suspect? I know you’ve always said that there wasn’t, but I don’t know if you were holding stuff back, just to make me feel better, or because the police say things like that.’
Gina sighed and shook her head. ‘We looked into a few who lived locally, but some had alibis, and the others? Well, we needed evidence and there wasn’t any. No eyewitnesses, no forensic evidence.’
‘Nothing at all?’
‘Whoever killed her got lucky.’
‘So if something new came up, like a name, would there be anything to link it with? Any scraps of DNA? You remember how it was with the Yorkshire Ripper, that once they knew who he was, they realised they’d spoken to him.’
‘Not that I remember,’ Gina said. ‘The investigation started as a blank sheet and pretty much stayed that way. We spoke with some of the known sex offenders, just hoping they would feel guilty enough to confess, but there are so many out there and we couldn’t chase every one. It would frighten people if they knew, but at times it felt like there was a predator on every corner. Over forty thousand people on the register, Joe. Over two thousand in this county alone. How the hell could we trawl those? And they’re just the ones we’ve caught. All we could do was knock on a few doors and hope that someone said something incriminating, but that never happens. We don’t even know if it was a sex attack.’
‘She was dragged into the bushes and her knickers torn off, for Christ’s sake, Gina!’
‘Hey, calm down, Joe. I’m only telling you what we know, and that is we’re pretty sure she wasn’t raped. There was no semen on her, no injuries down there. Her torn knickers could have been a distraction.’
Joe closed his eyes. He wanted to say that it had to be a sex crime, because he’d seen a man follow her, the man Gina had spoken to minutes before, but he stopped himself. Gina had confirmed what he suspected, that there was no point in telling the police about Mark Proctor. If there was going to be justice, he had to do it his way.
‘Ellie became just another number,’ Joe said. ‘Another dead child.’
‘It feels like you’re blaming me.’
‘I’m not, I told you.’
‘Thousands of kids go missing every year,’ she said. ‘We ended up putting them into categories. Which ones were probably runaways. Which ones were probably dead. Most turn up again, even if they end up in short skirts working for some shitbag under the railway arches, or giving handjobs in exchange for cigarettes. The others will be buried somewhere, and we know we’ll never find them. Some can never be found. Gi
rls like Ellie are the exception, not the rule, because we know what happened to her.’
‘That would be worse, if she’d been taken and not found,’ Joe said. ‘I would have spent all my life looking for her. At least we had something we could learn to deal with.’
‘What made you think of her?’ Gina said.
‘Just one of those moments where she jumps back into my life,’ he said, and drained his glass. ‘I’m going now. If I stay, it will turn into a long session, and I don’t want that.’
As he manoeuvred his way out of his seat, edging around the table, Gina touched his hand. ‘Joe, if you need to talk, you know where I am. I know when something’s on your mind. You don’t hide it well.’
He swallowed. He found it hard to look her in the eye. He gave a quick smile and a nod.
‘Thank you,’ he said, and went for the door.
Once outside, it was as if he couldn’t hear the noise of the city any more. He could see nothing beyond Mark Proctor. He’d always promised himself what he would do if he found Ellie’s killer. Now that he’d found him, he was letting Ellie down by not following through on it.
Fourteen
Sam pulled up to the kerb outside a detached house in the south of the city, close to a boutique-filled crossroads just a short drive from the motorway. A brand-new Mini stood on the curved tarmac driveway, underneath the kinks and curls of a twisted hazel tree that cast a shadow over a half-circle lawn. The roar of a plane broke the peace and calm as it passed close overhead, on its way to the nearby airport.
The front of the house was clad in roof tiles, so it looked as if there’d been a surplus when it was being built, but the size of the plot shouted wealth. If Henry Mason’s lifestyle had been aspirational, his sister-in-law had reached her goal.
‘Nice,’ Charlotte said, peering through the side window. ‘I bet she’ll make us take off our shoes.’
‘Somewhere like this?’ Sam said. ‘Too well mannered.’ He climbed out. Charlotte followed.
The driveway crunched under their feet, announcing their arrival, but no one appeared. They weren’t just checking out the movements of Claire Mason. They wanted dirt on Mason, to work out why he hung around in parks with flowers, and his wife’s relatives may be more amenable to slating him than his wife.
The doorbell was a loud chime, and there was a long pause before the door opened. The chain stayed on and wary eyes appeared in the crack.
‘Mrs Hadfield?’ Sam said, raising his identification. ‘DC Parker, Greater Manchester Police. This is DC Turner.’
The door was closed, to allow the chain to be taken off, and then it swung open to reveal a woman who was doing her best not to be in her forties. As she smiled, her teeth shone back too brightly, and her jumper revealed a cleavage that was too sprightly to be natural. Sam didn’t feel bad about noticing; it was meant to be that way. Her eyes were red.
‘I’m sorry, come on in,’ she said, and set off walking down the hallway. She was in jodhpurs and pumps, and as they followed her into the kitchen Sam glanced into one of the rooms. There were exercise machines and mirrors. The kitchen was large, with a central plinth containing a hob and a large silver duct hanging over it. The black granite twinkled and matched the shiny floor tiles that glinted in the spotlights in the pristine white ceiling.
‘You’re here about Henry, I presume,’ she said.
‘That’s right,’ Sam said, confused about how she knew.
‘I’ve just seen it on the news,’ she said. ‘And call me Penny. I can’t believe it. How’s Claire?’
‘The news?’ Sam said.
‘Yes, didn’t you know?’ A flat screen TV attached to a wall was playing. Penny picked up a remote control and rewound the footage. After a few seconds, Brabham appeared, giving an impromptu press briefing outside the station.
Sam sighed. Brabham just couldn’t help himself. Sam hoped Claire Mason had been able to collect the children from school.
‘It’s simply awful, isn’t it?’ Penny said. Her accent sounded affected, as though she was trying too hard to enunciate. ‘Sit down please.’ She gestured to a gleaming white table in front of a large window before she walked over to a glass-fronted cupboard and took out two thin white cups. There was a pot of coffee bubbling in the corner. She looked down as she filled both cups. When she brought them over to the table her smile was fixed back on. As Sam and Charlotte settled down, Penny fetched a small jug of milk. She was the perfect host.
‘Is this where Claire has been staying?’ Sam said.
‘What do you mean?’ Penny said, looking surprised.
‘We know there’ve been marital problems and Claire has been staying away from home,’ Sam said. ‘And there’s a bag with clothes in over there.’ He pointed to a holdall in the corner of the kitchen.
Penny sagged in front of them. ‘Yes, she has, just for a few days.’ Her voice lost some of its confidence. ‘The boys, too.’
‘What’s behind it?’ Sam said.
Penny scowled. ‘He’s a man, what do you think?’ she said, and glanced at Charlotte.
‘If you mean Henry, we need more than that,’ Sam said. ‘If we don’t expose Henry’s life, we might not find out who killed him. Or why.’
‘It doesn’t seem fair to Claire.’
‘Neither is letting Henry’s killer stay free. This is no time for secrets.’
‘Claire was here all night,’ Penny said. ‘You can scrub her from your list of suspects. She came home with the children and stayed in. We drank wine and talked. Paul, my husband, will confirm it, if you want. Call his office. We annoyed him because the boys were running around and when he gets back from work he likes to relax.’
That was when Sam realised what was missing from the house: a heart. It was all appearance over warmth. No children. Just a large empty box filled with things to make it resemble a magazine article.
‘What did you talk about?’ Charlotte said. ‘And how did Claire seem?’
‘She was angry,’ Penny said. ‘She’s always been there for him and then he does – well, did – what he did.’
‘Which was what?’
‘It’s such a cliché, you know, but Henry had always been like that. He was jealous of us, but Paul has worked hard for everything. It didn’t bother us that they didn’t have as much money. I just wanted to spend time with my sister and my nephews, but I couldn’t because they argued whenever I went round. He thought I was judging them, but I wasn’t, and he tried too hard to match us. He took out loans and mortgages they couldn’t afford, so Claire had to go out to work too and all their money went on childcare. They just about got straight, but as soon as we moved here Henry decided he needed a bigger house.’ Penny shook her head. ‘It’s no one’s fault that we’ve got more money than them and he shouldn’t have felt bad about it, but he did, and it ate away at their marriage. He accused Claire of not loving him enough, of not respecting him. He said that she should look up to him because he was the man of the house but all she saw was failure.’
‘Would you describe him as a bully?’ Charlotte said.
‘No, just weak, but Claire loved him. At least she did, until he ground her down, and then it happened.’ Penny pulled a face when she said it.
‘It?’ Sam said.
‘Like I said, Henry was a cliché. Hair dye, jewellery that had more show than value. It was no surprise when something went on with the babysitter.’
‘When was this?’
‘A couple of months ago, but Claire only found out a fortnight ago, when she tried to get her to come round and she wouldn’t.’
‘So what happened?’
‘I don’t know, Claire wouldn’t go into details, but I know that she’d been trying really hard with Henry. They’d been doing that date-night fad, you know, where you set aside a night to pretend that you’re young lovers again. Henry had never really been interested but he went along with them, but Claire said he’d been getting a bit weird.’
‘What do you mean,
weird?’ Sam said.
‘Look, it’s not my place to say. Things that go on between a husband and wife should stay private.’
‘She told you.’
‘I’m family.’
‘And Claire’s husband has been killed.’
Penny let out a long sigh. ‘I suppose you could say kinky. Claire said he’d become more forceful.’ She shook her head. ‘No, that’s not right. That isn’t how she described it. It was more about hurting her. It wasn’t about her enjoyment any more, it was just about his, and he liked hurting her, almost as if he resented her, and he talked about how he’d preferred her when she was younger. Can you imagine how that made her feel? So they have this date night but it doesn’t go well. He drove Molly home, the babysitter, and something happened. I don’t know what exactly, but that’s why Claire walked out.’