The Dead Tracks dr-2

by Tom Weaver

  I looked out through the glass to where Phillips, Davidson and Fryer had booked me in. They'd been joined by Hart now - and someone else I didn't recognize. He was wearing uniform. Early fifties but lean. On the shoulder of his shirt was his rank insignia. A crown, with red trim. Beneath that, a four-pointed star. As I studied him, he seemed to sense it and returned the look.

  'David?'

  I watched him for a moment more. 'So who makes that call?'

  'What call?'

  'To bypass the solicitor.'

  'It has to be superintendent rank or above.'

  Standing between Fryer and Hart, a printout of my custody report in his hands, the station's chief superintendent was still looking at me.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Twenty minutes later I was inside Interview Room 4 and the tape was rolling. There were three cups of machine coffee between us. None of them had been touched. The room was smaller than the one I'd been in before. It was all part of the play. Smaller room. Less space to breathe in. Psychologically, they were trying to secure any kind of advantage they could.

  After pushing Play, Phillips introduced himself and Davidson for the benefit of the tape, and then asked me to confirm my name and address. On the desk in front of him was a thin brown Manila folder. From inside, I could see the corners of photographs poking out. His hand was flat on top, as if he were scared it might suddenly disappear. Next to him, Davidson had resumed the casual stance of the first interview: leaning back in the chair, jacket off, too-tight T-shirt, arms crossed and resting on his belly.

  'Okay, David,' Phillips said, 'let's get started. I'm going to ask you a few basic questions first, all right? So… can you confirm your occupation for us?'

  Davidson smirked. I looked at him. 'Something funny?'

  'David?'

  I turned back to Phillips, but didn't answer.

  'David?'

  'I'm a missing persons investigator.'

  Davidson nodded. Mock sincerity. He leaned forward in his chair and dragged one of the coffee cups towards him; just to be seen to be doing something.

  'So, why missing persons?' Phillips asked.

  'About four months after I left the paper, one of my wife's friends asked me to look into the disappearance of her daughter.' I paused. Both of them looked at me. Phillips made no movement. Davidson shifted again. 'So I did. After that, a couple came to see me. Then another one. Then another. Somewhere after that, it became a job.'

  'Are you registered?'

  'With who? The ABI? No, I'm not registered. I haven't signed up for my free newsletter and quarterly copy of Investigators Journal!

  'How do people hear about you then?'

  'Yellow Pages, the internet, word of mouth.'

  'Did the Carvers hear about you through word of mouth?'

  'You'd have to ask them.'

  'They didn't tell you?'

  'Normally it's not that important to me.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'I mean, the people who come to me have usually had their hearts ripped out because their kids haven't come home for a month. I'm not conducting market research. I'm trying to find the most important person in their lives.'

  'And do you?'

  'Do I what?'

  'Find them?'

  I nodded. 'Always.'

  'So you're good at your job?' Phillips asked.

  I glanced at Davidson, but spoke to Phillips. 'I think you and I probably have different definitions of whether a person's good at his job or not.'

  Davidson sat forward in his seat. Laid both hands on the table, like he was trying to hold himself back. If the tape hadn't been running, he might have said something.

  'What have you found out about Megan Carver's disappearance?' Phillips asked, staring at the file, still closed, in front of him.

  'Not much.'

  'Care to elaborate?'

  I didn't respond immediately, and when he looked up, he could see my face: Not really. 'She disappeared from her school on 3 April this year,' I said, before he could say anything that would get committed to tape and make me look unhelpful. 'I've interviewed her friends and family. I've been through her email and her phone. As of yet, I haven't found anything.'

  Phillips's eyes narrowed. 'Really?'

  'Really.'

  'Nothing at all?'

  'Nothing substantial.'

  There were three things I had that the police didn't. One was Megan's link to the Dead Tracks. When they'd got into her email, and been beyond the security on the LCT's site, they would have found the map of the school car park and the message (Meet here at 2.30p.m. for a romantic woodland picnic!), but with no idea which woodland it referred to, it wouldn't have led anywhere. Because they didn't have the guy in Tiko's. If they'd picked out the man in the footage at any point during the six months since Megan vanished, then seen the message on the map, eventually they would have put it together. But without him, what they had was worthless.

  The second thing was the youth club. They had that too — they just hadn't gone deep enough. They'd almost certainly interviewed Daniel Markham, but because Kaitlin never mentioned Megan's pregnancy to them, he'd probably managed to slip through the net. And if he'd talked himself out of trouble once, it was a fair bet he'd do it again. What the police had was an obvious connection between Megan and Leanne: two missing girls, both part-time workers at the same place. But if Healy was sniffing around, working his daughter's case off the books, it meant he was desperate for a lead; and that, in turn, meant police were still trying to find out who had taken Megan and Leanne. Markham was key, and — for the moment — only I knew about his relationship with Megan.

  And then there was Frank White, out there in the margins of the case. They'd found dog hairs in the warehouse the night he was shot. Hairs I was willing to bet matched up with the dog I'd come across in the woods. Beyond that, though, I was still looking for what tied him directly to Megan. Perhaps I could use Healy. He wanted answers about Leanne, and I wanted to know where Frank White fitted in.

  'What about Charlie Bryant?' Phillips asked, disrupting my train of thought.

  'He's connected to her disappearance somehow,, but I haven't figured out how or why. I'd suggest, though, that Whoever killed him probably took Megan.'

  'Why kill him?'

  'Like I say, I haven't figured that out yet.'

  'You must have a hunch.'

  'Maybe he witnessed something he shouldn't have.'

  'Like what?'

  I frowned. You want me to list a few fantasy theories? Or do you just want to stick to the facts? No witnesses. No CCTV. No accounts that Megan was particularly unhappy or depressed. No sign her grades were dropping at school. As I'm sure your colleague DCI Hart has already told you, this is a complex case.' I paused. Hart. He was supposed to be the lead on the Carver investigation. So where was he? I looked at Phillips. 'Shouldn't Hart be taking this interview? He was heading up the Carver disappearance, wasn't he?'

  Phillips nodded. 'Chief Inspector Hart is busy elsewhere.'

  'I saw him earlier.'

  'He was checking in.'

  Now it was my turn to look suspicious. 'The biggest unsolved of the last twelve months and he doesn’t want a piece of it?'

  Phillips sighed. 'If you must know, David, DCI Hart is currently taking a long, hard look around your house.'

  I frowned, 'Why?'

  Phillips ignored me and spun the folder around, so it was facing me. He slowly opened it up. Inside were five photographs, face down, one on top of the other.

  'Why do you think?' he asked.

  He flipped the top picture over. Crime-scene photography. It was a picture of the doll I'd found at the youth club, sitting on my living-room table, just as I'd left it. He turned the next one over. The photograph I'd discovered inside it — the woman's shoulders and neck — in a transparent evidence sleeve.

  'Those were left for me.'

  'Where?'

  'In my front garden,' I lied.
/>   'By whom?'

  I looked at him. 'I don't know.' 'When?'

  'I don't know.'

  'Do you know where the doll came from?'

  'No.'

  'Do you know who the female in the picture is?'

  'No.'

  He leaned back in his seat. 'There's a lot you don't know.'

  'Would you rather I made up an answer?'

  Phillips shook his head. 'No. No, I don't want that, David. But let me remind you: you're in trouble here.'

  'Because some nut left a doll on my lawn?'

  He studied me for a moment, then looked down at the rest of the photographs. A couple of fingers tapped the table. He started playing with his wedding band. Turning it. Turning it. 'Do you know what the number two signifies on that photograph?' Phillips asked, placing a fingertip on the scrawled two in the corner of the picture of the woman.

  'No.'

  'I think you do.'

  He slid a finger under the third photograph and turned it over. It was another picture of a photograph, this one bagged as evidence, sitting on the kitchen counter in my house. It had been taken in the same location as the previous picture of the woman's neck. Same subdued light. Taken either seconds before, or seconds after. In the corner was the number one, written in exactly the same way. And looking out was a woman I didn't recognize. Not Megan, but not dissimilar to her. Blonde hair, tied up behind her head. Blue eyes open, but slightly glazed. She wasn't dead, but it looked like she might be drugged. She was pretty, but her skin was grimy and it looked like there might be a faded bruise to the side of her right eye.

  'Who's that?' I asked.

  'You don't know?'

  'No.'

  'You didn't take this?'

  'No.'

  Phillips flipped over the fourth photograph. It was a picture of Derryn's shoebox — the one I'd seen a crime- scene tech leaving with — taken from above, bathed in the white of a flashlight. It was full of her stuff: photographs of us, photographs of her, some jewellery, a notebook. On top, right in the centre of the box, was the photo of the woman Phillips had just shown me; in situ. Dirty, drugged face. Blonde hair. Bruise.

  They'd found it in the shoebox.

  'That's not where it was,' I said.

  'That's where we found it.'

  'I've never even seen that —'

  'We found that photograph in the shoebox in your cupboard at your home,' Phillips said. 'This woman…' He looked from me to Davidson. 'We believe you abducted and tortured her.'

  'You've got to be kidding me.'

  'No, David,' he said. 'I'm deadly serious.'

  'I don't even know her. I've never seen this woman in my fucking life. I don't know who she is, or how her picture got into that shoebox, but it's nothing —'

  A blink of a memory formed in my head. The night I got back from Jill's at four o'clock in the morning. I'd forgotten all about it, but now it was coming back to me. The rubbish bin at the front of the house had been tipped over, and the bin liners had spilt across the pathway. And the porch had been left slightly open.

  'Somebody broke into my house,' I said quietly, almost to myself.

  'David—'

  'Somebody broke into my house.'

  Who?'

  'I don't know. I was at a friend's. When I got back it was the early hours of the morning and there were bin liners all across the path, and the door to my porch had been left open. I didn't leave it open that night.'

  'Did you report it?'

  'No.'

  'Why not?'

  'I didn't think about it.'

  'Or you just lied to us again,' Davidson offered.

  'Why would I lie?'

  'I don't know,' he replied. Why would you?'

  'I'm not lying.'

  'You're lying,' Phillips said.

  I stopped. Looked at him. It was more definitive coming from Phillips, more of a statement than if it had come from Davidson. Phillips had played everything out on an even keel. No posturing. No promises. No showboating. Now he was accusing me of lying in a police interview.

  'I'm not lying,' I repeated.

  Phillips watched me for a moment, and something flickered in his eyes; maybe a little disappointment, as if he'd expected more from me.

  Then he flipped the final photograph over.

  It was a picture taken in my kitchen. An evidence marker had been placed on the floor at the base of some varnished wooden panels that ran for about six feet under one of the counters. The very top one had come away on the right side. I'd noticed it a couple of nights before while making myself dinner and had vowed to reattach it, but then forgotten. In the space behind the panel there was a nail in the cavity wall.

  And something was hanging from it.

  I pulled the photograph towards me. It was a piece of white clothing, the cotton speckled with blood.

  'What's that?'

  'That,' Phillips said, thumping a finger against the picture, 'is what Megan was wearing the day she disappeared.'

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  The first thing I thought about was how far away Liz would be now. There were no clocks inside the interview room, and though Phillips wore a watch, it was hidden beneath his shirt cuffs. It was maybe an hour since I'd called her. That would put her somewhere north of Oxford if she'd left the moment I put the phone down. I looked between Phillips and Davidson and considered asking for the free legal advice I was entitled to. It wouldn't stop the interview altogether if they thought Megan was alive somewhere and in immediate danger, but it would break the two of them up and complicate the interrogation. By the time they were back on track, Liz would be that bit closer.

  'You going to deny you put it there?' Phillips asked.

  I nodded. 'Yes.'

  You suggesting someone's setting you up?'

  I nodded again. 'Yes.'

  Davidson shook his head. 'This is bollocks. You know where Megan Carver is. You've got her clothes in the walls of your fucking house. Where is she?'

  I looked at him. 'Think about it. Why would I take on her case if I'd abducted her? Why would I risk the exposure? Someone's trying to put this on me. Whoever it is broke into my house and planted all this shit for you to find.'

  'You're just digging yourself in deeper here, David,' Phillips said.

  'I'm not digging myself in anywhere. Someone thinks I've got too close to the truth, and now they're trying to screw me to the wall.'

  'Got too close?' he replied. 'But earlier on you said you hadn't found anything more than we did. Are you saying that's not the case?'

  He tilted his head a little, like I'd just slipped up.

  'No,' I said, and began to weave another lie: 'I'm saying I may have inadvertently hit on something I haven't managed to figure out yet - or drifted too close to him somehow.'

  'Him? Who are we talking about here?'

  I sighed. 'Everyone in this room knows it's a man.'

  Yeah,' Davidson said. You.'

  'No,' I said. 'Not me. But every stat on the planet will tell you this is a man. It's not a leap of faith.'

  Davidson shook his head again.

  'How did you even know to look in my house in the first place?' I asked him. 'How did you know this stuff was there? Six months along the line, you suddenly decide I look good for this? No way would a judge sign off on that.'

  'Maybe it's the fact that the first time we met you you're stumbling out of a house that ain't yours with two dead bodies inside,' Davidson said, leaning in to me. 'And to up the ante, one of them's just a kid and, four inches from his body, we find a piece of plastic - which turns out to be from that' He punched a finger at the photograph of the doll. 'Oh, and you know who that doll belongs to, David?'

  I didn't - but his question had just told me.

  'Megan,' Phillips said.

  It was Megan's doll. Shit. I was struggling to keep my head above water.

  'The police investigation is over,' I said, trying to maintain the control in my voice. 'You know it, I kno
w it. If you had anything on Megan's whereabouts, any leads, I wouldn't have been hired by the Carvers. Whoever it is that's doing this knows you aren't a threat to him any more.'

  'And what?' Davidson smirked. You are?'

  'Why else would he leave this stuff in my house? He's setting me up. I've hit on something somewhere, and he's trying to protect himself.'

  'So what have you hit on?' Phillips asked.

  'I told you. I don't know.'

  'You don't know because you won't tell us?' he fired back. 'Or you don't know because you've just made up a load of shite and are hoping we'll buy it?'

  'You want alibis?'

  'Sure, why not?' he said, his voice simmering. 'Give us your alibi for the day Megan disappeared. And why not deliver a few witnesses too while you're at it? One for when the doll magically turns up on your lawn. And another who can back up your story of someone breaking into your house, taking out a board in the kitchen, hammering a nail into the wall and placing an item of Megan's clothes on there.' He shook his head. You better start dancing with us, David.'

  I realized then that I'd have to give them something. Something to get them thinking.

  'The youth club.'

  Phillips had been looking away, at the photos. He turned back to face me, as if sensing the conversation was about to shift. Davidson's eyes narrowed again, his default expression. If I wasn't on the defensive, he immediately got suspicious. He leaned forward a little, waiting to see what I had.

  'You went to the youth club, right?'

  Phillips nodded.

  'Whoever abducted Megan met her through there.'

  Neither of them spoke. Phillips glanced at the photos, at his partner and then back to me. What makes you say that?'

  'Something one of her friends said. Kaitlin Devonish. She told me Megan used to really like this guy who went there. That they may have even dated.'

  Phillips studied me. 'She never mentioned that to us.'