The Reckoning

by Jane Casey

  ‘The video?’ Colin clicked on it and the screen went dark as the file began to load.

  The difference between the blank screen and the start of the video was subtle; at first, I didn’t realise it had started to play. The light wasn’t good, the image darkening to invisibility and then wavering back into some kind of focus. The camera moved and showed us a low ceiling, a narrow, slightly arched space that looked somehow familiar.

  ‘It’s the back of a van,’ Rob said, a couple of seconds before the wheel arch appeared in the corner of the frame and confirmed it.

  ‘What’s that on the floor?’ Godley asked.

  ‘A tarpaulin, I think.’ Colin leaned in for a closer look, and then sat back again as the screen suddenly flared with light.

  ‘Oh, Jesus. That’s Cheyenne.’ Derwent sounded distraught. I made myself look back at the screen.

  She was lying on the ground, on the tarpaulin, and the skirt of her dress was pulled up high on her thighs. Her hair was over her face.

  ‘Are you sure it’s her?’ I asked.

  ‘Definitely.’

  ‘That’s the dress she was wearing when she disappeared,’ Rob said.

  ‘What is this?’ I heard my voice crack.

  ‘This is what happened next.’ Godley had moved so he could see better and his face was so close to mine I could smell the shower gel he’d used that morning. My mind was twisting away from the fact of what was playing out in front of me, plunging at distractions like a leaping deer. I bit the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste metal, the stinging pain bringing me back to the room, to my job. To the girl lying on the floor and her hair over her face and a hand reaching out to move it away.

  ‘Is she dead?’ Liv whispered.

  ‘No. You can see her chest rise and fall.’ Derwent hadn’t taken his eyes off the screen. ‘Minor injuries.’

  Cheyenne stirred, and the sound cut in, shockingly loud after the silence that had been the soundtrack before. Rustling, breathing from behind the camera, then laughter as the girl came around, sitting up, staring around her in confusion. She was fourteen years old and alone with someone who clearly wished her harm, but she was John Skinner’s daughter too. Fascinated, I watched her pull herself together, draw herself up to a more dignified position and prepare to deal with the situation. When she spoke, it was with the confidence of someone who had never known a threat to fail because it would always be backed up by her violent, dangerous daddy.

  ‘You are in really big trouble.’

  And the screen went black.

  I let air out of lungs that were creaking; I hadn’t been aware I was holding my breath.

  ‘Is that everything?’ Godley asked.

  ‘I think so. There might be something else hidden on it. Files that have been overwritten sometimes still show up if you look for them. Depends on whether this was a new data stick or one he reused.’

  ‘Well, find out. Fast, Colin. We need to know everything that’s on there. And where this person found the video footage. You said you thought it came off a website.’

  ‘Could be.’ Colin shrugged. ‘Could be his own personal video, though, and he’s just making it look like he took it from somewhere else.’

  I found my voice. ‘It would be a pretty big coincidence that the guy who kidnapped Cheyenne and Patricia would start to focus on me, don’t you think?’

  ‘You are investigating the case,’ Derwent pointed out. ‘Stranger things have happened.’

  ‘No.’ I poked Colin. ‘Go back to the images of me. Can you show them as thumbnails?’

  A window appeared with the images arranged neatly in rows. I swallowed the panic I felt at seeing them all laid out, not wanting to think about the work that had gone into collecting them, the total lack of warning I had had.

  ‘Right. That one,’ I pointed at the jogging image, ‘that was two weeks ago. Long before Cheyenne disappeared. Before I started working on the paedophile case, which was my first point of involvement with this whole mess.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Godley asked.

  ‘Absolutely. It was such a nice day that I went for a run, and I hadn’t been running for a long time so for the next few days I could barely walk, and I haven’t had any time this week. Since I moved to the new house I have been jogging once, and that was it.’

  ‘Okay. So whoever sent you this …’

  ‘Is just a local nutcase, like I said.’

  ‘Someone who knows you’re a copper and what you’re working on,’ Rob pointed out.

  I bit my lip. ‘I sort of told my neighbours what I do. But it couldn’t be any of them.’

  ‘Couldn’t it?’ He raised his eyebrows.

  ‘All of those pictures were taken in the street either here or near my house. Someone’s been watching me come and go. If they were following me anyway—’ I stopped to clear my throat; it had closed up at the thought ‘—they could have seen where I worked. And it would only take a bit of research to find out what I was doing. I spent the day before yesterday at the crime scene in Brixton, and the discovery of Cheyenne’s body was reported in the Standard.’

  ‘Let’s assume it’s not directly connected.’ Godley the peacemaker stepping in to bring order and direction to what was turning into a row. ‘Let’s focus on tracing him as a separate enquiry. I want to know what he knows. Colin, you and Peter Belcott can work together. Track him down for me.’

  ‘And me,’ I said flippantly. ‘I’d like a word.’

  ‘Looks as if all you have to do is keep your eyes peeled, Maeve.’ Derwent grinned. ‘Are you sure he’s not in here now?’

  ‘That’s about all I’m sure of.’ I couldn’t keep the distress off my face even though I tried, and he looked contrite.

  ‘Sorry. I shouldn’t joke.’

  ‘We should watch the video again,’ Liv suggested.

  ‘That was my next suggestion,’ Godley said smoothly. ‘Colin?’

  He played it again, all the way through, this time with an audience of every team member who was at work on a sunny Sunday, which was most of us. I could hear a beat in the background, faintly, when the sound cut in. Music was playing somewhere nearby.

  ‘I think this was at the warehouse. I think that’s the sound of the club’s music.’

  Godley nodded, his attention focused on the screen. When the video faded to black, he said, ‘Again.’

  The third time Colin went through it frame by frame, stopping when the cameraman’s hand entered the frame. The still image was blurry and I frowned.

  ‘Next one?’

  The hand inched forward, still distorted by the speed with which he had moved and the poor quality of the recording. When he got as far as touching her hair, his hand lingered for a moment and came into focus, then blurred again.

  ‘Go back to the last frame.’ I leaned forward. It was his right hand. Something was niggling at me. Someone I had met. Someone I had spoken to. Faces flashed in front of me: Tom Malton, Matthew Dobbs and Carl McCullough, Lee and Drew Bancroft, Ken Goldsworthy, William Forgrave. Malton, open and honest and almost too forthcoming. Forgrave, who had hunted for girls on the Internet. Ken Goldsworthy. You never get your hands dirty … Dobbs? Derwent had said he was a safe pair of hands. Hands. Whose hand?

  In a rush, I remembered. The thumb. The twisted nail. Lee, chewing on it nervously. It was Lee’s hand I was looking at on the laptop’s screen. And then, with a shiver, I remembered more: Drew so relaxed, so chatty. I drove the van over with the lighting and sound stuff …

  I looked up and found Derwent in the group clustered around the desk. ‘It’s them. It’s the brothers. They’re the ones.’ He was looking baffled, much like everyone around him. I couldn’t get the words out quickly enough, or think how to explain. ‘They must have swapped masks to give each other an alibi. And they had a van, Drew said so. They’re the ones.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  It felt as if everyone was a million miles behind me. I made myself summon up enough
patience to be able to explain what I’d seen, and once I’d finished, Derwent nodded. ‘Harry, have you got those images you pulled off the Internet yesterday? I want any images where you can see the Bancrofts.’ Maitland went to fetch them and Derwent looked at me. ‘You can tell them apart, can’t you? You know which one is which.’

  ‘They do look different.’ I sounded as if I was trying to convince myself. ‘I suppose they were relying on the black-and-white masks to disguise them.’

  ‘I imagine it’s easier to see the differences when you are looking at them side by side,’ Godley said. ‘If they weren’t in the same place, people would be easier to fool.’

  ‘Especially somewhere dark, like a nightclub in a derelict warehouse.’

  Derwent tapped the ring binder Maitland had given him. ‘Come on. Let’s all play spot the difference. It’s joint enterprise whatever happens, but I want to know which of them took her.’

  ‘Well, that’s definitely Lee in the video.’

  ‘Okay. Follow it through. Was Lee the one who got her out of the club?’

  The answer to that, it seemed, was no. Drew disappeared for a good chunk of the evening, his place taken by Lee who had been snapped standing beside the bouncers, black mask in place.

  ‘You can’t see his hand in that picture,’ Godley pointed out.

  ‘It’s definitely him. Look at his skin. Drew doesn’t have acne, but Lee does. And Lee’s bigger. Put that side-by-side with another shot of Drew with Carl McCullough and you can see he’s not anything like as broad as the bouncer, but Lee’s nearly the same size.’

  ‘Lee must have popped out from behind the bar, supposedly to change the beer barrel or something. Then all he had to do was swap masks, come up the other stairs as Drew, make sure he was noticed, then swap back.’ Derwent shrugged. ‘Simple, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, and that makes sense. Drew is the talkative one. If you wanted to charm someone into trusting you, you’d send Drew.’

  ‘And they had to get her to trust them so they could persuade her to leave the club without anyone noticing.’ Godley sighed. ‘Right. These two need arresting.’

  ‘I knew there was something off with them.’ Derwent raised his fist and bounced the side of it off the desk. ‘Did you find anything on them on the PNC, Maeve?’

  ‘I didn’t look them up.’ I said it in a small voice, but everyone heard and froze where they were standing.

  ‘Why the hell not? I told you to check them out.’ Derwent looked absolutely furious and I flinched, not strong enough for a confrontation. There was a general movement away from the conversation as people suddenly found they had urgent business back at their desks.

  ‘I tried, but they gave me the wrong year of birth. Plus their real names are Alexander and Andrew, which they forgot to mention. I only found all of that out when I crosschecked with the DVLA, and then I never got a chance to look them up again because the DS who investigated Patricia Farinelli’s disappearance called me back. I thought it was important to find out what had happened to her, so I got side-tracked.’ I shot a look at Godley, who was looking troubled. ‘DS Rai in Stoke Newington did a piss-poor job on the case so I had to get the details from her parents and friends.’

  ‘Too long. I stopped listening after “I tried”,’ Derwent snapped. ‘Did you not think checking the Bancrofts might be a priority when you found out they’d lied to us?’

  ‘People do lie about their age, you know. It didn’t strike me as that weird considering they work in a world where you have to be young and trendy. And if they always use their nicknames—’

  ‘Don’t even fucking attempt to defend yourself!’ His nostrils had gone white around the edges and a vein was standing out on his forehead. ‘If you’d done your job properly we’d have had this information yesterday. We could have arrested them straightaway.’

  ‘Well, we can arrest them today.’ I swallowed. ‘I’m sorry, all right? I made a mistake.’

  ‘So did Marla Redmond’s team,’ Liv pointed out. ‘They didn’t even get as far as spotting they lied about their ages.’

  ‘Being cleverer than that lot is not something to boast about,’ Derwent snapped. ‘You had a reason to be interested in them and you blew it. You’d better hope an extra day didn’t make a difference to Patricia Farinelli.’

  ‘Look, I feel bad enough about it already. I know I should have done it.’

  ‘There’s no need to give her a hard time, Josh. I gave her too much to do,’ Godley said quietly.

  Stung, I shook my head. ‘It wasn’t too much. I should have been able to manage it. Please don’t underestimate my abilities because I dropped the ball on this one.’

  ‘Oh, I think we’ve got a fair idea of your abilities at this stage.’ Derwent’s voice was soft, and all the more threatening for that. ‘Look them up. This time, do a proper job. We’ll go and make the arrests, and you can report what you’ve found when we get back.’

  ‘Is this my punishment? Being left behind?’

  ‘No, it’s your job. I’m not surprised you don’t seem to recognise it. Try doing it for a change instead of swanking around looking for glory.’

  I turned away and went to my desk, sitting down blindly as tears filled my eyes. I was annoyed with myself, and embarrassed that Godley had seen Derwent give me a well-deserved dressing-down. More than anything, though, I was frustrated that I had let Patricia down, despite all of my disdain for DS Rai. I hadn’t behaved much better than him, all things considered.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Godley and Derwent shut themselves in Godley’s office to plan the arrest strategy. I wished quite fiercely that I could go too, but far more than that I wished that they would find Patricia, and bring her home.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Sunday

  ROB

  I sat in the briefing room, listening to what Derwent was saying about the Bancroft brothers with about ten per cent of my brain. The rest was pure white noise. It would have been useful if my reaction to worrying about Maeve had been something more constructive, but I was stuck with unreasoning panic. Someone had been watching her. Following her. Tracking her down so they knew her workplace, and what she was thinking about, and where she might go next. Learning her routine. I had heard plenty about stalking before; I had even dealt with a woman who had made a complaint about it when I was first in CID, but I had never understood the reality of it. Someone, for reasons known only to himself, had chosen Maeve to be the focus of his attention, and there was nothing she could do about it except hope that we would catch him and pray that he wasn’t violent. I was doing a little of the latter myself. I didn’t like that she was out of my sight, even though I knew she was safe in the office. I didn’t want to let her move a step on her own.

  The thing that really bothered me was that the creep who was watching Maeve was calling all the shots. He had even picked how he showed himself to us. He needed catching, and fast. There was just the small formality of arresting the Bancrofts first.

  Godley was briskly dividing the assembled squad members into two teams, one to be led by Derwent and the other by the superintendent himself. I willed Godley to choose me for his team and was rational enough to know that had nothing to do with why he picked me.

  ‘Rob, you can drive my car. I want to stay in touch with Josh and you’re quicker than me anyway.’

  There were positive advantages to having ‘drive it like you stole it’ as a philosophy for life, speeding fines notwithstanding.

  ‘We’ll start off in Archway and arrest Drew Bancroft.’ He handed out maps of both locations, then turned. ‘Josh, you’ve been to Lee Bancroft’s flat. Can you describe the layout for your team and tell them the strategy?’

  Derwent nodded, moving centre stage to address the group. He was chewing gum rapidly and blinking very little, hopped up on adrenalin.

  ‘We’ve got a narrow approach, three flights of stairs. Out the back there’s bound to be a fire escape; I want two of you to scope t
hat out before anyone else moves. We’ll be letting CO19 do their Action Man routine but I don’t want him slipping out the back before we even get a chance to put in the front, so make sure we have it covered from the off.’ His words were coming out at a rattling pace.

  ‘Who else is in the building?’ someone at the back asked.

  ‘There’s a shop on the ground floor, an office on the first floor. Flats above that. I don’t know how many people live there but the office should be empty on a Sunday. We’ll go in hard, grab him, and hope he puts up a bit of a fight, if you know what I mean.’

  Derwent’s aggression was off the scale. I was even more relieved that Godley was in charge of my team. There was no sign of excitement in the superintendent. If anything, he was speaking in a more measured voice than usual, deliberately underplaying the tension. Just an ordinary day out, arresting two abusive kidnappers who had brought about a teenage girl’s death. It was practically routine when you thought about it.

  ‘What if they’re not at home?’ Maitland asked. ‘Shouldn’t we hold off until tomorrow morning?’

  ‘I don’t want to wait. Not with Patricia Farinelli potentially in danger. We’ll sit on the addresses and wait for them to return if need be. So keep a low profile. Unmarked cars only, and try to keep anything that would identify you as coppers out of sight.

  ‘As Josh mentioned, we’ll have support from CO19. They will be armed so make sure you wear your vests.’

  There was a rumble of amusement at that. The Met police vests were described as stabproof rather than bulletproof, which in practice meant they were thick enough to protect you from nothing more lethal than a determined toddler armed with a wooden spoon. Godley held up his hands.

  ‘I know, I know, but it’s the best we’ve got. Just wear them, okay? And hope the CO19 boys have learned to shoot straight.’

  Godley ran through what we knew about the flat Drew lived in, which wasn’t much. It was off the Archway road, a one-bedroom ground-floor flat. All we had was a fuzzy overhead view of the street with an arrow pointing to the correct property.