The Dead Tracks dr-2

by Tom Weaver

  'Really?'

  'Yeah, really.'

  I stopped for a moment. Healy's daughter was gone, just like Megan. So that's why he was so interested. Maybe he thought there might be a connection between them. Or maybe he'd already found one.

  'Was she ever registered as a missing person?'

  'Why, you hoping to make some money?' Dooley laughed at his joke. Yeah, Healy and his missus got back together for one last gig and tried to find her. Healy drafted in a couple of guys from the Met to help him out for a few weeks, but the whole thing hit the skids. When nothing turned up, the hired help drifted away and the bosses put them back on other investigations.'

  'Can you email me the missing-persons file?'

  'Yeah, if I wanna get sacked.'

  Bluster and front. This was how Dooley played things, just so he felt like he still had some control. 'Send it to my Yahoo.'

  I got silence as a reply this time.

  In front, brakes lights winked in the night, then disappeared, and I inched the car forward a few more feet.

  'So is that it?' Dooley asked.

  'One more thing.'

  'It's Friday night.'

  'You won't be late for the disco, Dools, I promise.'

  He sighed, his breath crackling down the line.

  'What can you tell me about Milton Sykes?'

  'Sykes?

  'Yeah.'

  'I didn't realize you were digging up cold cases now, Davey. Things must be slow. Who wants to know about him?'

  'I'm just interested.'

  'Ever heard of the internet?'

  'Yeah, I remember someone talking about it once.'

  'Stick his name into Google. You'll get about a trillion hits.'

  'Anything that didn't get released to the public?'

  'I know I might look it,' Dooley said, 'but I ain't that old. How the fuck should I know? They were communicating with smoke signals when Sykes was running around.'

  'Come on, Dools. I know how it works. Knowledge passed down through generations of police officers, like the family secret. You old-timers love to talk about what you would have done differently.'

  He paused, then blew more air down the line. 'What do you wanna know?'

  'You ever had any copycats?'

  He paused. You got someone running around pretending to be Sykes?'

  'No. I'm just asking'. 'No.'

  'No copycats?'

  'No. He's old school now. Most people under forty probably wouldn't even be able to tell you who he was. Sykes is the grandparents' story. Once that generation dies out, no one will even know what he did.'

  'So tell me about him.'

  'What do you want to know?'

  'Everything.'

  The line drifted a little. It sounded like he was moving. When he started talking again, it was virtually a whisper: 'Okay, you want my theory?'

  'That's why I phoned.'

  Another pause. 'He buried them in the woods.'

  I heard the line drift again. He was moving to a place where absolutely no one would hear him talking. I reached across to the hands-free and turned the volume all the way up. 'Just give me the condensed version,' I said.

  'The condensed version's the same as the long version: he was screwed from day one. His father pisses off the moment he zips himself up, and his mother pops her clogs from tuberculosis two months after young Milton is born. Sykes goes to live with his psychopathic aunty and uncle down the road; she's the bitch from hell, and he's a violent pisshead. Cue sixteen years of being beaten shitless and locked in the dark. School was a total write-off as you might have expected, although he got an A for killing animals and being a weird loner no one liked or spoke to.'

  'What happened after he left home?'

  'He landed a job at a dyeworks near East India Docks. Then women started disappearing. You think we're bad at our jobs; police back then didn't even notice for six years.'

  'How come?'

  'All the women were Indian immigrants working in the textiles factories. Their families reported them missing, but their English was bad or non-existent. Police excused themselves after Sykes was arrested by pretending they couldn't understand what they were being told - but, truth was, they probably didn't give much of a shit.'

  'So how'd he get caught?'

  'He stopped taking Indian girls.'

  'And took a white one instead.'

  'Right. Girl called Jenny Truman. Nineteen. Blonde- haired, blue-eyed. Goes to work at one of the factories in the morning and never comes home again.'

  'Why change?'

  'He was clever. He knew the police wouldn't go hard at the Indian disappearances, so he played things safe. But after a while he couldn't help himself and went after Truman. That was when the police finally decided to get serious. Eventually a couple of witnesses told them they'd seen her leaving with someone matching Sykes's description. So they head down to Sykes's place at Forham Avenue. You know where that is?'

  'No.'

  'That's because they've knocked it down now and built an industrial estate where the road used to be. It was right on the edge of Hark's Hill Woods, this big, overgrown area full of old factories in east London. When the police fumed up at Sykes's house, he excused himself and headed to a toilet at the bottom of his garden - and then made a break for it. Vanished into the woods.'

  'Did they find him?'

  'No. They lost him. But they searched his house and found a dress belonging to Jenny Truman with blood all over it, and a shovel - all hidden in a wall cavity in his kitchen. Three days later, he hands himself in to a police station in Camberwell.'

  'Why?'

  'Said he was tired of running'

  'So they never found the bodies?'

  'Nah,' Dooley said. 'After he got the rope in 1906, they did another search of the woods and came up empty- handed like before. But he must have buried them in there.'

  'Why d'you say that?'

  'He knew those woods like I know the way to the bar. He used to escape there as a kid to get away from his nut- job family. There was this place he talked about in his interviews with police. Locals used to call it the Hanging Tree; this weird, T-shaped oak, all gnarly and messed up, that looked like a giant set of gallows. There are photos of it online. Most people were completely freaked out by it, but not young Milton. He loved it so much he built a tree house in it. You ever been there?'

  'Hark's Hill? No.'

  'It's a strange place. Got this…' Dooley paused, then dropped his voice even further. 'Got this kind of… atmosphere.'

  I smiled. You a psychic now?'

  'Laugh it up. You don't believe me, ask the teams they sent down there in the 1920s to try and put a train track through there.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'Back in 1921, the local authority decided they wanted some track running from the factories up on Hark's Hill to the mainline on the other side of the woods. They sent teams in there to clear a path and start laying the foundations for the train tracks, only…' He paused again. 'Only, they got spooked.'

  'Spooked?'

  'They kept seeing things and hearing things.'

  'What sort of things?'

  'No one was ever sure, but enough to put the shits up them. That little project lasted four weeks before the entire workforce decided enough was enough.'

  'They walked?'

  'Like I said, that place…' Dooley sucked in his breath. 'First time someone told me that story I laughed my arse off. But you want to try going down there some time.'

  'Are you serious?'

  'Go down there,' he said, no hint of humour in his voice. You know me: the only thing I believe in is a beer on a Friday night. But you go to enough crime scenes, you start to get a real sense of life and death. And sometimes…'

  'What?'

  'I've worked murders for fifteen years, and some of the places you end up… I don't know, you're standing over bodies in these holes, and you can just feel a place is bad.

  That's the only way
I can describe it. You get a sense for places; kind of attuned to things. That's why I'm telling you he buried those women in the woods. Because I went down there, and that place… something's seriously wrong with it.'

  Chapter Twenty-two

  When I got back to the house, I checked for answer phone messages and then switched on the TV. A reporter was standing near the Royal Docks, the Thames framed behind her. At the bottom of the screen, a ticker tape was running right to left: MET POLICE: WOMAN FOUND IN THAMES RETURNED TO FAMILY. FAMILY HAVE REQUESTED NO NAMES/DETAILS BE RELEASED TO PUBLIC. I remembered the same reporter covering the same story a couple of days before while I was in the cafe close to Newcross Secondary. I didn't know much about it, but I did know that, if it had any legs, it wouldn't have been tucked away right at the end of the hourly bulletin.

  After showering, I went through my wardrobe. Laid a shirt out. Trousers. A pair of shoes I hadn't worn since the funeral. Then I sat on the edge of the bed and looked at my reflection in the mirror. That same flicker ignited in my stomach, and I felt all the doubt and the guilt and the fear move through my chest.

  It's too soon, I thought.

  And then I realized, until I did it, it would always be too soon.

  Ten minutes later, Liz answered her door. She looked beautiful. She was wearing a black halterneck dress that followed the shape of her body all the way down to the middle of her calves. Her hair was curled at the ends, falling against her shoulders in ringlets. She had a little make-up on, but not much, and her eyes were dark and playful, looking me up and down.

  'Wow,' I said.

  'Thank you.' She fluttered her eyelids jokingly and reached for a long black coat laid over the back of one of the sofas. 'You look very dashing too.'

  I looked down at myself. I had a black button-up shirt on, a smart pair of denims and a long, black, very expensive Armani jacket I'd bought at a shiny supermall in Dubai when I'd had to spend a week out there with the paper. It had looked great on the hanger, even better on, but decidedly less good coming out of my bank account. Since then, I'd worn it three times, terrified I'd irreparably damage it by subjecting it to fresh air.

  'I feel underdressed,' I said, looking at her.

  'Oh, rubbish,' she replied, slipping on her coat. You look great.'

  I handed her a brown paper bag.

  She took it and looked inside. Her face widened in delight. 'Kona coffee?' she asked. 'Now it's my turn to say "wow".'

  'It's just coffee.'

  'It's Kona coffee, David.'

  'Now you'll be forced to think of me as you drink it.'

  She smiled. 'That won't be a hardship.'

  The restaurant was three miles away, right on the edge of Gunnersbury Park. On the way over, we talked about our days. When it was my turn, I left out the bit about ending up at a crime scene and spending three hours at a police station. Liz looked at me a couple of times, as if she knew I'd not told her everything, but she didn't probe.

  At the restaurant, the owner - her client — gave her a kiss and a hug, then found us a table near the back, with views out across the park. On the walls there were black- and-white pictures of old Italy: cobbled streets; shuttered windows looking out over small town squares; stony- faced men and women outside cafes, their skin etched with age, their colour darkened by the Mediterranean sun. I ordered a bottle of white wine and some water, and then — once the waiter had gone — I turned to find her looking at me.

  'You okay?'

  'I'm fine,' she said. 'Are you okay?'

  'Yeah, I'm good.'

  There was a slight hesitation between us. This was a very different road from the ones we'd walked before. She could see the apprehension in me, and I could see it reflected. It was nearly two years since Derryn had died, and in that time it had been a meal, or a coffee, or some company at the end of a hard day. Now it was the beginning of something more.

  I eased us back into conversation by asking about her daughter.

  Liz had met her ex-husband straight out of university, and been married at twenty-two. A year later, Katie was born. She'd told me a bit about her background before.

  Her husband had battled her for custody of their daughter, but came out second best. 'He could be a little… She looked up at me. Violent. I nodded that I understood. 'Never seriously. And he never, ever touched Katie — but any future I had seen for us rapidly went down the toilet when he started on the booze.'

  'When did you decide to get out?'

  'When Katie was two. I packed her off to my parents for the weekend, and sat him down and told him I was leaving. He took it badly, as you might expect. I think any man, even a drunk, feels wounded when you tell him he's not providing for his family.'

  'Does she still see him?'

  'He moved up north. She hasn't seen him for eight years.'

  Our meals arrived a few minutes later. 'So what about you?' she asked, as we started eating.

  'What do you want to know?'

  'Did you ever think about starting a family?'

  'We talked about it a lot, especially when we hit our thirties. I always imagined my work would put me off wanting to have kids - all the tragedy and the heartbreak I got to see — but it never did. We definitely always wanted them. In the end, though, Derryn found out she had cancer and… well, it became less important.' I smiled at her, letting her know everything was fine. She seemed to understand the gesture, but I could tell the conversation had led somewhere neither of us wanted it to go. I made an attempt to redirect it: 'My mum used to tell me she loved me more than anything in the world — but that I'd put her off having another baby for the rest of her life.'

  Liz smiled. 'Really? So you've always been naughty then?'

  'Apparently they could never find my heartbeat when she was pregnant.'

  'So, what — you're a vampire?'

  I laughed. 'Not a vampire. But definitely a pain in the arse.'

  'When did your folks pass on?'

  'Mum was just over five years ago. When I was young, my dad used to take me out shooting in the woods close to our farm. Dad had this whole thing about me being a marksman in the army. When I became a journalist and crushed his dream, I agreed to go shooting with him on Sunday mornings as often as I could get down to see them. One morning we got back to the house and mum was lying on the bench outside the house. She'd had a stroke. Dad died a couple of months later.'

  'I'm sorry.'

  I shrugged. 'It's weird. The only time it ever really registered with me that my parents were getting old was when they talked about their age. I never really noticed otherwise.'

  'You must miss them.'

  'Yeah, I do.'

  'Do you ever get over that feeling?'

  'You want the honest answer?'

  She nodded.

  'When you love someone, I'm not sure you do.'

  I left Liz chatting to the owner while I walked to get the car. The rain had eased off, but there was still a chill in the air. The BMW was parked close to a cemetery and in view of the motorway, cars flashing past beneath a permanent orange glow.

  'David.'

  I turned around, my key in the door. On the other side of the road, just coming out of a pub, were Jill and Aron. They crossed the road towards me.

  'Wow,' Jill said, smiling as they approached. 'Talk about coincidence!'

  I shook hands with Aron. 'How are you guys?'

  'We're good,' Aron replied.

  Jill held up her mobile. 'I tried calling you earlier, but you weren't picking up. I figured you were busy with work.'

  I fished in my pocket for my phone. It wasn't there. Then I remembered I'd left it on the bed at home.

  'That's because, brilliantly, I've forgotten to bring it with me.'

  Aron smiled. 'Forty - it happens to us all.'

  Jill laughed. 'Oh well, never mind. I was just calling to see if you wanted to come out for a drink. Remember I mentioned it?'

  'Oh, of course.'

  I did remember. I hadn'
t purposefully forgotten, but I was glad to have gone out to dinner with Liz instead. Even from the limited conversations I'd had with them both, it was obvious their friendship was developing in a way both of them were enjoying. I didn't want to get between that.

  'I'm really sorry,' I said, lying. 'That would have been great.'

  'Next time maybe,' Jill said.

  I glanced at Aron. He was smiling, and looked as if he wasn't worried whether I said yes or no. If it was for show, or to avoid making me uncomfortable, he was doing a good job.

  'Next time,' I said.

  'I wanted to thank you, actually, David,' Aron said.

  'Really?'

  'For going round to see Jill the other night.' He looked at her. She smiled at him. 'I was up in Manchester at a work function, and had my phone off all night.'

  'It doesn’t matter,' she said.

  'It Does matter,' he replied softly. He turned back to me. 'Anyway, I wanted to thank you for stepping in and helping out.'

  I held up a hand. 'Really. It was nothing.'

  'Well, it was very good of you.'

  I nodded at him. 'Can I give you guys a lift somewhere?'

  'Oh, no, don't worry,' Jill said.

  'It's only about a quarter of a mile to my place,' Aron added, nodding across the cemetery to where a bank of newly built homes had gone up on the other side. 'You should come over one day. We can celebrate the onset of old age together.'

  I smiled. 'I like to live in denial.'

  'Then we can live in denial together.'

  I shook his hand, but Jill seemed hesitant as I turned to her. I'd promised her I'd make a few calls, though had also said it would be after I cleared the Carver case. It had only been a day since I'd offered. But I could understand her impatience. She wanted to know what happened to Frank, and she didn't want to have to wait now she'd found someone willing to help. I'd left a message with an old contact of mine, who used to work in the National Criminal Intelligence Service before they became part of SOCA. But I hadn't chased it up.

  'I haven't forgotten about Frank,' I said.

  'Oh, thank you so much.'

  I nodded to them both, said goodbye again and got into the BMW. As I headed back to the restaurant to pick up Liz, I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw them side by side, laughing at something, fading into the night.