by John Barlow
She swallows hard, wishes she had a fag.
They’re all dead, even Reid.
This is revenge, has to be.
Where do you start?
Chapter Fifty-two
“God, I hate Macs,” says Steele, prodding the keyboard as if it’s infectious. “An’ I hate folk that have ’em. Pay twice the price for a laptop ’cos it’s got a pink cover and a bloody apple on the back? Dickheads.”
No one’s listening to him. He doesn’t care. Less than ten hours’ sleep since Thursday and he’s running on empty. So is Baron. They’re gonna need to get their heads down soon. Adrenalin only takes you so far, and they got there yesterday.
He runs his hands down the edges of the sleek aluminium case, loathing its pointless elegance, its preening self-assuredness. It’s not John Ray’s computer, but it’s the kind of thing he’d have.
“And why save links to a load of yachting websites?” he asks out loud.
“It’s a message for Ray,” Baron says, looking up from a pile of witness statements which are telling him absolutely nothing.
Steele snorts in frustration.
“And the champagne?”
“It’s a message,” Baron repeats.
They both know it’s a message. From Jeanette Cormac to John Ray. Must be. The sites were added one after the other on Friday morning, plus the Veuve Clicquot site. The yachts mean John Ray; the champagne means the Leeds bomb. What they don’t know is why.
“Friday morning, only Roberto was dead,” Steele says.
“And Sheenan,” Baron adds, returning to his file.
“If our investigative journalist knew about the champagne, she must have known about the bomb,” says Steele.
Deputy Superintendent Kirk is standing in the middle of the room, deep in thought. Around her people come and go, looking down at papers, or speaking into phones, everyone going a little faster and more efficiently now that she’s in charge.
“We know,” she says, coming over and regarding the screen with suspicion, as if it’s hiding the truth from them. “It’s a warning. Whoever’s doing this is trying to bury the truth by picking off everybody involved.”
Steele shakes his head. He doesn’t like the theory, but what else is there?
“Sheenan,” he says, “murdered on his deathbed.”
“One,” she says.
“Then Roberto Swales.”
“Two.”
“Now Reid. But what about Cormac? Why kill her? Because she knew?”
The Super rests a hand on Steele’s shoulder.
“That’s what we’re going with, John. And if we’re right, whoever else was involved is in danger.”
Baron looks up again.
“John Ray? He’s still our main man, no? Or has something changed?”
Multiple murderer? It can’t be Ray, she tells herself. Not this.
“We’ll see, as soon as you find him,” she tells Baron, with just a hint of rebuke.
Before he has time to think of a reply, a young WDC walks briskly over from the other side of the room.
“Ma’am, we’ve got a connection,” she says, like a girl-guide coming to collect her Job Well Done badge. “We got Jeanette Cormac on CCTV, the day before Roberto Swales was murdered, turning up towards the Park Lane. And this,” she holds up a clear evidence bag with a business card inside, “was found in her things. The Ministry of Eternal Hope.”
Baron is on his feet, dropping the papers he’s been reading and not bothering to pick them up.
“It’s Holt…”
“The church? That Holt?” the Super asks.
“Yes. His job?” Baron asks the WDC, his voice raised as he pulls his jacket on. “He works at Tony Ray’s nursing home, right? RIGHT?”
The WDC nods. “He’s Tony Ray’s carer.”
But Baron’s already gone.
And Steele’s not far behind.
Kirk and the WCD look at the open door.
“Too much testosterone, not enough sleep,” the Super says. “Let’s see what we can dig up on this Holt character, shall we?”
Chapter Fifty-three
She parks a couple of doors down. The address was in the file. Harehills housing estate, East Leeds. Alice Simpson, nineteen-year-old single mother, lived here with her parents in their council house. No sooner is the baby born, it dies. No father on the birth certificate. Why was that? Parents didn’t approve? He wasn’t in the picture? Wasn’t known?
She gets out, aware that whatever she’s thinking, Baron will have thought it a hundred times already. Wherever Alice Simpson is now, there’ll have been a team looking into her, checking her file, making sure nothing connects. Is this even worth it?
An idea. This is just an idea, the only one she’s got.
Big breath, off she goes.
There’s nobody called Simpson listed at the address now.
She chooses the house opposite. They answer, say they’ve only been here six months.
Next house along no one in.
Third door down, and a woman in her seventies opens. She looks surprised.
“Hello,” Den says, holding up her warrant card. “Police. Sorry to bother you. I’m looking for a woman called Alice Simpson.”
“Alice?” It takes her a while. “But she lived across the way,” she says, nodding up the street.
“Yes.”
The woman blows her cheeks out, brings her hands together. “That’s a while back, love. What d’you want to bring that up for, after all this time?”
“You knew her, then?”
“Aye. She grew up here. Poor lass, what she went through weren’t right. The kiddie was only a couple of weeks old.”
“I’m trying to find her. Have you any idea where…”
“Why don’t you leave her in peace. She weren’t even twenty, y’know. Why don’t you catch the buggars that did it instead?”
“Do you know where she went when she left here?”
The woman is thinking, reliving the horror of the bombing, of seeing it on TV, and knowing that the small bundle being brought out of the ruins was Alice Simpson’s son.
“Even the IRA denied it,” she says, ignoring Den. “But we all knew, didn’t we?” She pulls her cardigan together at the neck. “They got out, didn’t they. Bombers, murderers, they let ’em all out.”
“You’ve no idea where she went?”
The woman’s about to close the door. “She did well for herself, after. Picked herself up. Deserves credit for that. She were a good lass. Clever, like.”
“Married?”
“Aye, married well. Older bloke. Dry cleaners, got a few shops.”
Stay calm.
“Carr’s?”
The woman no more than tilts her head.
It’s enough.
“You can’t bring back that little bairn, though, can you!” she says, looking down the street again.
Den is already running down the path, shouting “Thank you!” as she goes.
Chapter Fifty-four
The electric gate buzzes open. He marches straight over to the corner of the building. The French windows are shut.
“Dad?” he says, rapping on the glass then pulling both doors open.
There’s no one there. Bed neatly made, paisley dressing gown hanging on the bathroom door, slippers by the bed. The bathroom is empty, just the faintest whiff of shaving soap and Old Spice.
The door. The door to the corridor is closed. It shouldn’t be.
He pulls it open, runs through to the reception. Only now does he realise that his hair is soaking wet, his suit too, cold and heavy on his shoulders.
“Where’s Dad?”
Terry is startled. She looks up from the reception desk, her eyes darting up and down his body.
“What happened to…” she begins.
“Where’s Dad?”
“He’s gone with Graeme. Like we agreed.”
“What?”
She shakes her head, confused.
&nb
sp; “He was here in front of me when he rang you.”
“Who rang me?”
“Graeme. You know, the carpet man.”
“He took my dad? What the fuck is going on?”
Terry gulps.
“Half an hour ago. I heard him asking you, John. He dialled your number right here in front of me. Spoke to you.”
“No he didn’t.”
She looks at his suit, at his haggard, swollen face with the gash above the nose.
“John, don’t worry. He’s with his carer as well. He’s been signed out, it’s all official. They’ve taken him for a little trip, that’s all.”
“Andrew Holt? What did he say? Tell me exactly.”
Terry flushes, the panic rising visibly in her cheeks, her lower lip wobbling.
“That, ehm, he said he was going to take Tony on a little trip down memory lane. I.. I mean, you, I thought he rang you. He said you’d…”
“Open the gate.”
A minute later he’s charging down Roundhay Road towards town. As he passes Holt’s ministry he sees three patrol cars outside, blue lights flashing, the traffic backed up behind them, bodies piling through the door as a crowd gathers on the pavement outside.
Too late for that. That’s not where they should be looking.
He gets his head down, opens the throttle.
Chapter Fifty-five
“Alice Carr?”
“Yes.”
She’s immaculately dressed, dark blue business suit tailored to her tall, strong frame. Flat stomach, though; less flesh on her than there might be.
She stands halfway behind the door. Doesn’t say anything.
“I’m DS Danson. You’re Alice Carr, née Simpson? Is that right?”
The woman exhales.
“I’m a little bit busy, can it wait?”
Her hair is dark chestnut. Dyed? Perhaps. Neatly tied at the back. Make up is light, a hint of russet to the lips, her cheeks pale.
“No it can’t wait,” says Den. “A quick chat?”
She inches back a little further from the door, as if she might be about to slam it shut.
“Sheenan?” Carr asks. “The man who murdered my baby boy? He was killed in his bed two weeks ago. I’ve had a few ‘quick chats’ with you lot since then. Can’t you leave me alone?”
“And the father of the child? Has he been questioned as well?”
“You tell me. And I’ve been through all this, several times. Like I said, I know nothing about him.”
Yes you do.
The footage of the bomb: a young man, baby in his arms, walking from the wreckage, and looking for all the world like the little kid’s father. John was right about the video.
“Can I come in?” Den asks.
“There’s nothing else to say.”
Alice glances over her shoulder, back into the house.
“Are you alone?” Den asks.
“I’ve always been alone, from the day they dragged me out of that supermarket.”
“I need to talk to you, Alice.”
She smiles for the first time, rocks slightly on her feet, then pushes the door wide open.
“Make yourself at home, officer.”
As she steps inside, Den can smell the perfume, not strong but enough to suggest that it’s been put on recently. Alice’s black business shoes make a precise tapping sound on the old wooden floor, the rhythm very slightly off-kilter: she has a limp.
“Are you expecting someone?” asks Den.
“No,” she says, leading them into a large living room with views over an extensive, well-maintained garden.
The lounge is tasteful and fastidiously neat. There’s a real fire in the hearth, its coals emitting just enough heat to make the room feel cosy, despite its size.
Den looks around, can’t see any photos of newborn babies on the mantle or anywhere else. There’s a wedding photograph, a few portraits of adults, but no sign of babies.
“You like Mahler?” she asks, showing Den to one of several leather armchairs arranged around a mahogany coffee table.
“Fine for me.”
“When you live alone,” she says as they both sit down, “you develop all sorts of interests. Music, reading, cooking. It’s either that or the telly every night.”
They sit and listen to the music, which is peaceful yet fast-shifting, like a rising tide in the corner of a harbour, not knowing which way to run.
“On second thoughts!” says Alice, turning the music off with a remote.
Between them, on the coffee table, is a laptop. It seems out of place amid the various trappings of old-world luxury. It goes with Alice’s clothes, though, the suggestion that this is a work day and she’s been interrupted.
“I hardly knew the father,” she says without being asked, as if she’d rather broach the subject herself. “I’d only been going with him a month or two. Stupid of me, getting pregnant like that. Kind of thing that happens, y’know, when you’re young and you lose control.”
“You don’t look like the kind of person to lose control.”
“Not anymore, no.”
She leans forwards, makes sure the laptop is square to the edge of the table.
“You didn’t put him on the birth certificate,” Den says.
“He didn’t want to know, not at first. Best rid, I thought. Then a few days later he came to see me. Fell in love with the baby, seeing his own little son, realising that he was a father. But,” she says, running her hands across the laptop, “I’d got the birth certificate by then. We were gonna change it. Never had chance.”
She’s looking down as she speaks, as if talking to the computer in front of her.
“He walked out of the supermarket. They must’ve got the kiddie off him. And Graeme dis…”
She looks up, as if startled at her own words. But then she’s smiling, trying to catch Den’s reaction, playing with her.
“It’s all right,” says Den. “I know who he is.”
Alice’s eyes widen. She can’t hide it. Saying his name is a relief, a bandage peeled away.
“He disappeared. By the time I’d come round in hospital they were asking me, wouldn’t stop. I said I didn’t know the father. Reckoned there was no reason to, nothing to be gained, not if he wanted away.”
She gets up, favouring her left leg, leaning on the arm of the chair.
“And that was that. I got a gammy leg from the bomb. You want a drink?”
“Whatever you’re having.”
Her limp is barely noticeable unless you know it’s there, the rest of her body held perfectly straight and in balance.
“Here,” she says, returning from the kitchen with two large champagne flutes, giving one to Den then sitting down.
“You’re all dressed up for work but you’re drinking champagne?” Den says, shuddering as she places the glass to her lips and feels the tiny bubbles in her nose. “Tell me about Graeme.”
“He disappeared. Gave a false name at the hospital, then slipped away. They asked me, dozens of times. Needed to trace the man who brought my child out of the building. But I thought, if he just wants to walk away from it all, who am I to stop him?”
“And where did he go?”
“Artillery. Prince of Wales Regiment. He was in Iraq in ninety-one. Desert Storm, remember that? Bosnia a couple of years after that, then Northern Ireland.”
“He kept in touch?”
“No. Not till after, when he was in jail.”
“Military jail?”
She nods. “Manslaughter, he killed another squaddie, fight outside a pub. Graeme joined the army to be angry, to scream and fight and kill. The problem was, he was killing the wrong people. That’s when he wrote to me, when he had no one else, no one who’d understand.”
“But you’d moved on,” says Den. She looks around the room. “You made a life for yourself. Got married, a business…”
“It was still there, eating at me. There was never a trial, no one ever paid for killing my baby
boy. How easy is it to get on with your life after that?”
“You did.”
“I got married, did all right. But when Maurice died, I realised I’d just blanked it out for twenty years. The business kept me occupied. But when you come home to an empty house every night, the thoughts come back. And back. I’m glad Graeme got in touch.”
She finishes her wine and gets up from her seat.
“Alice,” Den says, “I need to know about Graeme.”
“So open the computer. Go on.”
Den does nothing, stays where she is, sensing something new and unnerving in Alice’s tone and not sure how to respond.
But Alice has disappeared into the kitchen again. When she returns there’s a bottle of Dom Perignon in her hand.
She pours herself more, and sets the bottle down on the floor by her chair. Then she opens the laptop, turns it so Den can see the screen, and perches on the arm of the chair across from Den.
“Do you know why my baby was killed? Because we were going to buy a bottle of champagne for the christening party. We were busy choosing which brand. Couldn’t afford this, of course,” and she gestures towards the bottle on the floor. “But something good, the real stuff.”
For perhaps a minute she is silent.
“We always knew who’d killed our baby.”
“How?”
“Bernard Sheenan. It’s common knowledge.” The screen of the computer flicks into life. “Ah, here we are.”
On the screen is Graeme, the carpet guy from the home. And John was right, it’s the young man who walked from the wreckage twenty-odd years ago, the same slim, pale face, the father of the dead child. His head is close in to the camera now, which he appears to be setting up.
“When did he get out?” Den asks, her eyes fixed on the screen.
“Dishonourable discharge, two months ago.”
“And Sheenan? He killed him?”
“Yes, of course he did.”
The camera judders, nothing but blurred images of Graeme’s back now, no sense of what’s going on.
It only takes a moment. When Den looks up Alice is standing behind the armchair, a gun in her hands.