by Jane Isaac
She pressed her lips together, expecting tears which didn’t come. The effects of the last week felt like someone slowly letting the air out of her lungs, so much so that now she almost felt completely deflated.
She picked the other photo up of her parents and thought back to when she had been a child. She had hated going to bed before them, being the only one upstairs, insisting on all of the doors being left open.
“What if something happens?” she would say.
And her father would try to reassure her, “I’m only seconds away, you only have to call and I’ll be there straight away.”
“But what if you don’t hear me?”
“Of course I will. If you shout loud enough, people will always hear you.”
A thought struck her. Standing up and placing her hands around her mouth for maximum effect, she opened her mouth and hollered at the top of her voice, “Ross!”
The silence was almost deafening. Nobody moved, nobody came running. He lied. Sometimes you can shout as loud as you like but nobody paid any attention. She sat back down on the bed.
And then she heard it, a scratching noise, the sound of a door swinging slightly, then footsteps.
Anna caught her breath in her throat and jumped up again staring at the door. Ross! Her heart was racing as a head appeared around the door frame. Then it sank rapidly.
“What are you doing here?”
“I was worried about you. Was that you shouting?”
“Umm. Yeah.”
“Are you OK?” Rab’s forehead creased in concern.
“I think so.” She looked up at him. “How did you know I was here?”
“You told me, remember? On the phone.” He smiled comfortingly.
They stood in silence for a moment. “How did you get here?”
“I borrowed a friend’s car. I can give you a lift home if you like?”
She nodded nonchalantly and looked around the room. It felt so familiar. She wasn’t ready to go back to Worthington, back to her parent’s meticulously tidy house. Not yet.
He seemed to sense her mood and sat down on the edge of the bed, opposite her. “Did you know that you left the front door open?” She shrugged and watched as his eyes darted about. “Great room.”
“Thanks.” She gave a half smile and drew a huge breath through her nose. As she exhaled she sat back down on the bed, swinging her legs around and tucking them under her, so that she was sitting cross legged, facing him.
He leant over and picked up the photo, which lay next to her. “This Ross?”
She nodded.
“He looks nice, decent.”
Anna looked at him and wondered how you could tell that from a photo. But it was true. Ross was sound. “You’d really like him,” she said.
Another silence followed. She stared at him for a moment. Once again, he seemed to sense her curiosity. “What?” he asked.
“I was just thinking that I hardly know anything about you,” she replied.
“What do you want to know?” His face looked like an open book and slowly her body started to relax.
“What happened to you when our mother died?”
“I was put with a family on the West side of Hampton. The Roxleys.” He gave a small grunt as he remembered.
“You didn’t like them?”
“No. Well, yes. They were actually very nice. They already had two boys. Richard was two years older than me – really academic. Strange lad, always in his room listening to music with his nose in a book.”
“Not like you then?”
“You could say that. Oh, I liked books, don’t get me wrong. But I was also eight years old and into anything as long as it included a ball. I don’t think he even noticed I was there; until I took his Walkman to pieces.”
She glanced askance at him and he grinned. “I put it together again afterwards,” he said, “just wanted to see how it was made.”
She couldn’t help but smile. “What about the other boy?”
“Charlie?” His eyes widened. “He was only four, sweet really.”
“What were their parents like?”
“When I think of them now, I realize how nice they really were, how much they tried . . .” Rab’s words trailed off. He was lost in thought.
“What happened back then?”
“Then? I hated them. I hated the world. I had lost my mum, my dad, you, moved across town so I couldn’t see my friends and started a new school. My world had turned upside down and I blamed everyone for it.”
“What did you do?”
He rolled his shoulders. “I can’t remember much – just that it was a nightmare . . . I broke things, was rude to everyone, missed school. They tried for six months until they let me go.” He stopped for a moment, staring into space. “She cried on the day I left.”
“Who?”
“Mrs. Roxley.” He shook his head, “In spite of everything. I couldn’t work out whether her tears were due to fondness or failure . . .”
“Where did you go then?”
“I was moved around a bit for a few years, then went to the Taylors in Weston. Janet and Ron. Landed on my feet there.”
“Back on home turf?”
He smiled, happy memories. “Exactly. And Janet and Ron were . . . different.”
“How do you mean?”
“They seemed to kind of understand. However angry I got, however frustrated, they’d sit me down and talk to me. And they really listened. Nobody had done that before.” They sat in silence for a moment before he continued, “Strange really. They never had any children of their own. Don’t know why. But they’d fostered loads over the years. There were always adults coming back to see them that they had cared for at some stage. Janet made you feel part of a family, her family, and everyone mattered.”
He looked across at her. “They worked tirelessly at helping me to get in contact with you.” He shook his head. “But we always came up against a brick wall.”
Anna pressed her lips together sympathetically before she said, “They sound like amazing people.”
“They are. It was them that got me into go karting.”
“At Worthington?”
He nodded. “We practiced there every Sunday, but they drove me all over the country to competitions. I was really good,” he gave a cheeky smile, “even though I say so myself.” He fidgeted with his feet, kicked off his trainers, swung his legs onto the bed and laid back. He looked as though he was perched on a shrink’s couch.
Rab sighed in happiness. “All those years of karting made me a top notch driver. Passed my driving test after four lessons.” He glanced at her smugly.
“Wow!”
But Rab didn’t hear her. His face had clouded over. “That was my downfall. That was why they wanted me to drive eight years ago.” She remained silent, rapt as he continued, “I didn’t even know what I was there for. I mean I knew it was a bit dodgy, but I didn’t know what the job was. It was all top secret. It wasn’t until I saw the guns . . .”
Anna froze. She tried her hardest not to look shocked. “What happened?” she asked gently.
“Armed robbery. They’d planned it for months. Only it went wrong and they shot a guy.” He sat up and looked at her. She could see the hurt in his eyes.
“Did he die?” Her voice was a whisper.
“No, thank goodness.”
Anna nodded, relief flowing through her.
Rab flinched. “The worst part about it was Janet and Ron’s faces in court, the day I was sentenced. Their disappointment sliced through me like a knife.”
“Do you still see them?”
“They visited me a few times, but I was a long way away so we wrote to each other. It was them that got me into plumbing. I can’t believe that they still believed in me.” He nodded slowly to himself. “I’ll always be grateful for that.”
So now she knew. “Why plumbing?” Anna asked, keen to lighten the atmosphere. “Why not engineering, or computers?”
He thou
ght about this for a while. “Didn’t want to be stuck behind a desk all day long, web designing, drawing specs. for machinery, or in a factory building something. I like to be out and about. Anyway,” he added, “people will always need homes, heating, water. And there’s always a shortage of plumbers.”
She nodded. You couldn’t disagree with that. “Are you allowed computers in prison?” she asked, slightly abashed.
“Computers, yes.” He nodded. “We can use the internet, although it’s regulated and heavily monitored. Very frustrating . . . I used to set up everyone’s mobile phones for them though. Loved doing that.”
“Are you allowed mobile phones?”
“Not officially, they are banned, but they still get through.”
“How?”
“Wives, girlfriends . . .” He shrugged. “Where there’s a will there’s a way, I guess.”
There was a question niggling away at Anna, a question she could no longer avoid. “Why did you do it?” she asked quietly.
As he looked across at her, she could see the same intense expression spreading across his face. “I owed someone a favor.”
“What favor could be worth that?” She regretted the words as soon as they had left her mouth.
Rab’s face hardened. “You have no idea.”
“Sorry.”
He continued as if he hadn’t heard her apology. “Everyone knew how much I wanted to trace my sister. Jonny’s girlfriend worked for the DSS. She used their main computer to find you. I remember it was called the ‘Departmental Central Index’ – it contains details of everyone living in the UK. She looked through the records for you, tracked your new name. Once I had that information it wasn’t difficult to trace any change of addresses. She went out on a limb for me, could have lost her job if she had been found out.”
Anna’s heart sank. “A big favor.”
“You could say that. I was asked to drive for them in return.” He shook his head. “Shouldn’t have agreed to it. I always knew Jonny was a mad bastard, but I was desperate.”
She looked across at him, racked with remorse. She couldn’t imagine how anyone could want to go to such lengths to get to know her.
Suddenly, Rab jumped off the bed and reached down for his trainers. “That’s it. My life history,” he said, re-tying his laces. “Now come on, let’s get you home.”
It was like closing a book before you had finished the story. Anna wanted to reflect on it, discuss it, but he clearly wished to move on. “OK,” she said, “I’ll just pop to the loo first.”
When she walked back into the bedroom Rab was sitting back on the side of her bed with her mobile phone in hand, looking at the lit screen. She shot him a puzzled look. “What are you doing?”
“You left it on the bed,” he said, jumping up, “didn’t want you to forget it.” And with that he handed it to her and headed out the door.
She stared after him for a moment as the light slowly went out, then grabbed the photo and followed him out of the flat.
* * *
He watched them leave from behind the parked cars, across the street. Both of them, together now. He crouched down as they climbed into the car opposite, careful not to be seen. Rab was talking, he must have said something amusing because she laughed, a chuckling laugh that one shares with close friends, family . . . They seemed to be getting to know each other well.
As hatred flushed through him, his mouth curled into an evil grin. Good. Enjoy it while it lasts. It will make the pain all the more difficult to bear . . .
* * *
There was a pungent smell of alcohol in the air as Anna walked through her parent’s back door that evening. She smiled to herself. Her father often enjoyed a glass of whisky in the evenings. Perhaps it made her mother’s company more palatable?
The first thing she saw was a brown, padded envelope, curled in one corner, sitting on the kitchen table. Curious, she went over and examined it. As she lifted it, she looked at the addressee: Miss Anna Cottrell 12 Worley Close, Worthington, Hampton, in the large, scrawling letters of a thick, black marker pen. There was no postmark.
“Dad!” she called through to the lounge.
Moments later she heard footsteps and then his face, tinged with red from the heat of the whisky, appeared in the doorway. “You’re back. Any news?” he asked gingerly.
“Nothing, I’m afraid.” She pressed her lips together.
“Sorry.”
“When did this arrive?” She held up the package.
“No idea. You mother found it posted through the letterbox this evening. Looks like it was hand delivered. You expecting something?”
Anna turned it over in her hands curiously and squeezed it. “Not that I’m aware of.”
“Oh.” He watched her turn it over again in her hands. “Well, aren’t you going to open it?”
She shrugged. “I guess so.” She pulled down the paper catch on the underside which ripped open the package revealing a clear plastic bag with what looked like a piece of crumpled , hard material inside. She searched back through the packet. There was no note. Puzzled, Anna turned it over. What she saw made her take a sharp intake of breath. The scream that followed pierced her father right through to the bone.
Chapter Seventeen
Helen opened the new message from DS Strenson and quickly clicked on the attachment. A man with fair, almost white, hair, gelled back from his face, and pale grey eyes stared back at her. Her cheeks flushed with adrenalin. Could this be Aaron Gravell?
The image flicked a switch in her memory. She screwed up her eyes and thought for a moment before reaching for her policy log, turning back the pages urgently. Helen reached the page she was looking for and scanned the text. What she saw made her stomach flip. She grabbed the phone. “Sean?”
She watched Pemberton lift the receiver in the incident room and place it to his ear through the open Venetian blinds which covered the windows to her office. As soon as he heard her voice he looked back at her. “Ma’am?”
“Sean, could you get me a copy of the description of the man seen with Jim McCafferty on the day of the murder?”
“Certainly.”
“And find out if there’s any news on the CCTV footage enhancements would you?” She lifted her wrist and pointed at her watch.
“OK.” He nodded in that animated way that people do when they want to show understanding from a distance.
“Thank you.” As she replaced the receiver, it rang immediately.
“DCI Lavery?”
“Inspector, it’s Alison Strenson. Did you get the e-fit?”
“Yes, thank you. Any leads yet?”
“Not yet. We plan to circulate the image. We’ll keep you informed.”
“Thank you.”
“Actually, I’ve just had a phone call from Anna Cottrell. Apparently, she’s been trying to contact you.”
Helen screwed up her forehead, reached in her bag for her mobile and clicked the screen open. Nothing.
“I have no missed calls,” she replied, “I’ll check with the incident room. What did she want?”
“She’s been sent a package, believes it to be her boyfriend’s tattoo.”
Helen jolted upright. “Has she been interviewed?”
“Not yet. We only just took the call. I wanted to speak with you first.”
“Thank you, I appreciate that. Where is she now?”
“At her parent’s home in Worthington.”
“I think I’ll go out and see her myself.” She thought back to the piece of skin removed from Jim McCafferty’s arm. “This could be a direct link with the MO on our murder.”
“No problem. I thought you might say that. Let me know how you wish to take it forward?”
“Sure. Thanks, Alison.”
“You’re welcome. Bye.” Helen replaced the receiver, walked over to the window and stared out at the car park below. A man in a black suit was removing a large briefcase from the boot of his car. But she didn’t pay him much attention. In
stead she stared out over the car roof tops, gathering her thoughts. She remembered the Super’s concern - “Removal of the tattoo bothers me.” Nobody knew about the piece of skin removed from Jim McCafferty’s arm apart from those working on the investigation. It hadn’t been released to the press. Her skin prickled.
A brief knock at the door drew her attention away from the window and she turned to face Sean Pemberton. “Here is the description you asked for.” He leant over the desk to hand her the paperwork. “And I’ve checked with Pluto Digital and they are still working on the footage. But they said they’re making good progress and should be able to forward us some enhanced stills by first thing tomorrow.”
“Thank you,” Helen said. “Are there any messages for me? I hear Anna Cottrell has been trying to contact me?”
“Not that I’m aware of. I’ll check with the others.”
“Thank you.” Helen was only half listening, as he turned and left the room. Her eyes flashed over the shopkeeper’s description of the man who was seen with Jim McCafferty.
“Yes!” she exclaimed, her left hand clenched into a fist, as he re-joined her, a slip of paper in his hand.
He stared at her confounded.
“We have a match!”
“Pardon?” She ignored his remark, instead re-reading the description, as if it were too good to be true. He continued to wrinkle his forehead, then pushed the piece of paper forward. “Found this on Townsend’s desk, came in about an hour ago.”
“What is it?”
“A message from Edward Cottrell, asking to speak to you.”
She shook her head dismissively, but even Townsend couldn’t spoil the exhilaration she felt at this moment. “Get your coat!” she said, jumping up. Pemberton thrust his head back and stared at her. “Where’re we going?” He was looking at her as if she were quite mad.
“I’ll explain in the car. We need to get out to Anna Cottrell’s parent’s house, and quick!”
“Give me two minutes . . .”
* * *
It was Edward Cottrell who answered the door. Helen thought how he had visibly aged in the few days since she had last seen him. Dark shadows had crept underneath his eyes and the creases on his balding forehead seemed deeper than ever.