by Steve Mosby
My drink rattled as I lifted it and swallowed a mouthful.
I watched as the man in grey walked back to the car and got in. Then, a moment later, the vehicle sped away. But it wasn't remotely reassuring; given everything, I suspected they might circle around, park up somewhere out of sight, and come inside to check the bar. For some reason, even with all these people here, it didn't feel like I'd be safe.
I put my glass down and headed out, joining the throng in the station.
As I walked, I passed the payphone I'd called the police from, and thought about Mike and Julie. If something had happened to them, I was to blame. I should have gone to the police. Instead, I'd been so determined to take responsibility for my past - to face it head on and deal with things myself - that my actions might have put them in danger.
Tell him this is all his fault, James had said.
I was beginning to think that he was right.
I was still thinking about it twenty minutes later, sitting on a train, rattling away south from Whitrow. Where I went right now wasn't so important. My plan was to pick a stop at random, and then wander until I found a hotel. It was as close as I could get to losing myself. I needed to go to ground for a while and work out what I was going to do.
I didn't want to go to the police. It wasn't anything to do with making amends this time, or owing it to Sarah to find out what had happened. It was simply practical. The man who'd phoned had not been Paul Kearney, but he had known about him. As far as I could remember, neither Mike nor Julie could have told him we'd ever met. Which meant this man had other connections, possibly within the police themselves, and that I was looking at real organisation here: people who could gather information quickly and efficiently, and then act decisively within the space of a few hours.
Until I knew what was going on, I didn't know who to trust.
That was what I was telling myself. But there was also something else, and I couldn't quite pin it down. Strangely, it was Kearney my thoughts kept returning to. The memory of his eyes, and the way he'd looked at me. I had the feeling that if I stared back into them for long enough, I'd work out what was bothering me.
But instead of probing the idea, I looked around the train. It was a cheap, local service, and the carriages seemed to have been assembled from the old parts of disused buses. The floor here was lined with rubber and the seats were faded and tattered, crammed in tight and facing one another, like booths in a dirty cafe. The whole thing rocked from side to side as it clattered along, as though it might fall apart at any second.
We passed into a tunnel, and the rattling of the tracks whipped away into a hush. I saw a pale, yellow reflection staring back from the window, but for a second, it didn't look like me at all. It was slightly different, in the same way that the city had felt. My absence had changed me too. And as I looked at myself now I found it hard to work out what was wrong.
Who are you?
I blinked. But then we shot out of the tunnel again, and the stranger was replaced by the green static of an embankment, blasting backwards.
Who are you?
I didn't know. I didn't know if I wanted to.
Running had never really worked: that's what I'd thought back in Venice. That I'd never been able to leave the bad things behind me. But an awful feeling was coiled inside me, and I wondered now if maybe I'd been wrong.
If there was something I really had managed to forget, and which, through the shape of its absence, was coming slowly and irrevocably back into view. A punch that would knock me flat if it landed. One which I could no longer move quickly enough to slip.
* * *
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The house was dark when they arrived.
The early evening sun was still hazy in the corner of the sky, and Kearney thought he could see a hint of light through the closed curtains, but the building still looked grey, as though it was full of mist, pressed up against the windows. It wasn't a matter of illumination; it was something else, something that was missing. The life in this house had simply gone out, like a broken bulb.
'Side door's open,' Todd said.
His partner's voice sounded grim. He was feeling it too.
'You take the front,' Kearney said.
'You sure?'
But Kearney was already heading down the drive, turning sideways to edge between the red-brick wall and the white saloon that was parked up beneath the car port. Sheltered from the sun, he began to shiver. Not just from the temperature. Adrenalin.
Maybe something else too. In the back of his mind, the headache thud was growing louder and faster. He felt frantic. Desperate.
Round the front of the house, Todd banged on the door.
'Mister Halsall? Could you open up, please? Police.'
Kearney pushed the side-door further open with the back of his fingers. It moved silently, only creaking as it came to a halt. A kitchen. Dark. Empty. He opened his mouth and listened carefully, hearing nothing but the heavy pressure of absolute silence.
He stepped inside, turning slightly.
'Police. Anyone home?'
Nothing.
He heard Todd knock again, louder this time.
The kitchen was long and newly fitted. There were clean pine cabinets under a polished granite counter, and others fixed on the walls. The last person to wash up had left a pink dishcloth folded neatly over the arched spout of the tap. At the far end of the room, a water-print of Kearney's own face stared back from the black gloss front of the oven. Beside it, the light-blue time pulsed softly in the gloom.
18:08.
It ticked over suddenly: 18:09.
Kearney blinked, then moved further in, checking behind the door: clear one room at a time. But there was no obvious place for anyone to be hiding in here. He'd seen someone cram themselves into a cabinet before, but these were too small. The door to the pantry was hanging open though. Just mops and a lawnmower, the blades clumped tightly with grass.
A doorway had been cut into the side wall. Through it, Kearney had an angled view of the lounge. He could see a neat, beige carpet, stretched across the floor. The back and shoulders of a plump, leather armchair. A plasma screen. The edge of the curtains, with a dagger of white light at the side, where the fabric didn't quite meet the wall.
Kearney stepped around the island in the centre of the kitchen and saw-
Feet.
Two pairs of feet, a little splayed out, their heels resting on the carpet. One was in black shoes. The other was bare, the toenails painted purple.
Todd banged on the front door. The feet didn't move.
Kearney shouted, 'Round here, Todd.'
Then he moved cautiously into the front room.
Oh God.
There were two bodies on the settee, dreadfully quiet and still. A man and a woman, resting shoulder to shoulder, their hands in their laps. The woman's head was tilted back, her mouth half open, while the man's had lolled to one side, as though he was staring down at her shoulder. There was what looked like a gunshot wound in the middle of his forehead, and his eyes were closed. Behind him, the top of the sofa was saturated.
Mike Halsall and Julie Smith.
Kearney breathed in and caught the scent of burnt air. It was the aroma of old gunpowder. Behind it, a trace of the blood that had been spilled in here.
Neither of them appeared to have fought or resisted. Was that because…
They have a baby.
The panic flared, just as his partner arrived beside him.
'Oh Christ,' Todd said.
Kearney set off across the living room.
'Paul - what the hell are you doing?'
'They've got a kid, Todd.'
'These two have been shot. We need-'
'There's a little boy in here.'
Even as he stepped past the bodies, he knew Todd was right. It was possible the gunman was still inside the house. In the corridor, perhaps, or waiting quietly upstairs. If so, he was putting himself at risk.
He moved into the hall anyway, and then started quickly up the stairs, not even hesitating. The thudding in his mind was accelerating. There's a little boy in here. The thought drove him upstairs. On the landing, he smelled talcum powder and shower gel.
The main bedroom was obvious. The bathroom too. Kearney went to the final door along. As he pushed it open, his heartbeat was racing, and the pulse in his head was keeping time with it.
The room was dark and silent. At the far side, there was the fractured, shadowy shape of a mobile hanging down above a…
For the first time, Kearney paused.
The crib was like a wooden cage. Through the bars, he could see a white cushion and blankets, and the ridge of something beneath them. He stepped closer, then finally rested his hands on the top of the wood. Within the crib, he could see a baby's head, turned to the side. The cover rose slowly, then settled. Then again. The baby was sleeping.
Something flipped inside him, and for a moment he thought he was going to collapse. Instead, he rested his forearms across the top of the crib and took deep breaths.
'Paul?'
'It's OK.'
As he heard Todd's footfalls on the stairs, the baby stirred slightly, and Kearney looked up at the wall behind the crib. It was covered with stickers. Some of them were peeling away, as though they'd been too old to stick on properly in the first place.
Stars, he realised blankly. Fluorescent stars.
They threatened to overtake him.
'You think it's the same guy?' Todd said.
He spoke quietly. They were outside waiting for extra units, standing by the car. Kearney was holding the baby, wrapped in a blanket, and staring at the dark house in front of them. The child had flopped against him and didn't seem unduly concerned by what had happened. Now that it was over, Kearney himself was shaking enough for both of them. He had tunnel vision. The only way he could control the feelings inside was to fix his attention on the house.
Unravelling…
'Paul? The guy that called you?'
'I don't know, Todd.'
The phone calls had come in relatively quick succession, and his mind kept returning to the man he'd seen outside Ellis's flat.
The same man with long hair and a tan that had apparently been seen chasing Christopher Ellis from The Duncan earlier in the day. Kearney had told Todd about him, and he couldn't shake the idea the guy was the key to all of this, but-
'He asked for you especially the first time.'
'Yeah,' Kearney said. 'He thought I'd phoned him.'
'But you hadn't?'
'You were there with me.'
'And you've no idea who it was?'
Kearney didn't answer. The feeling of recognition was stronger than ever, but he couldn't place him. It was like the man had changed somehow. Not enough to obscure him totally, but just enough to confuse the part of Kearney's brain that was normally so good at recalling people.
Todd began chewing his fingernail nervously. He didn't like it when Kearney got lost; it made him uncomfortable. After a moment, he nodded at the house.
'No obvious connection to Christopher Ellis.'
'The man on the phone said so.'
'That doesn't mean anything. No handcuffs. No fire. And socially, these people are a world away from Ellis and Gilroyd.'
Kearney didn't reply. He knew Todd was waiting for him to provide the usual answers, or at least come up with a theory, but he couldn't. The only thing he was sure about was that these people were connected to Ellis somehow. It might not be obvious, but when he figured it out everything else would fall into place. And he needed to make the connection. Needed to make it now.
Kearney closed his eyes and rocked the baby very gently. He could smell the child, and it was a warm smell. The scent of care. He tried to use it to focus his thoughts.
'Are you OK, Paul?'
'I'm trying to think.'
And right then, Todd's mobile phone started ringing.
Kearney kept his eyes shut, but something inside him swung away. Was this it? There was no way he could know for sure, but he had a feeling it was. For the last six months, he'd been expecting it. Every time he saw Burrows in the corridor, or walked past the curtained door of Operation Victor, he'd felt it coming towards him. And yet every night, he'd continued. Unable to stop.
Because, by then, it was too late anyway.
He wanted more time.
'Shit,' Todd said. 'It's White.'
DSI Alan White: their boss. There was a beep as Todd accepted the call. Kearney tried to ignore it. Tried to think.
Come on, Paul. You need to make this connection now.
'Sir?' Todd was silent for a moment. 'Yes, sir. He's with me here.'
After that, Todd didn't say anything for a while. Perhaps it was only thirty seconds, but it felt like a lifetime. And the answer just wouldn't come. In its place, all he could think of was an image of Rebecca Wingate, reaching out to him. Almost within touching distance, but then - suddenly - gone. He'd failed her.
Kearney opened his eyes.
Todd slid the phone into his pocket. He was looking at him curiously.
'White says you need to head back. He says straight away.'
Kearney nodded.
'What's going on, Paul?'
'You know what the worst thing is?' he said. 'I promised him we'd find her.'
'What?'
'Simon Wingate. I promised him.'
Todd stared at him, not understanding.
'It's just like Anna said,' Kearney explained.
'Paul?'
His ex-wife had told him that the worst thing about his affair was not the fact he'd done it, but that he'd continued to say 'I love you' when it couldn't possibly be true any more. Promises that he knew could never be kept.
We will find her.
All the frantic mornings came back to Kearney now. The way he'd woken up full of fear and shame, wishing he could take it back, determined not to let it happen again. But then, each night, it had. And yet he'd spoken to Simon Wingate, making promises that would inevitably turn into betrayals when the truth came out. That was the worst thing of all. It was better to say no words at all than to have the ones you did turn to poison.
Todd looked almost panicked now.
'Paul?' he said. 'What have you done?'
'I'm sorry,' Kearney whispered.
He had no idea who he was talking to.
Half an hour later, he'd regained at least some sense of calm.
DSI Alan White was in his early fifties, but looked younger: his hair was receding but still dark, and he had the confidently muscular build of a man who played squash three times a week and could pound the streets for hours without troubling himself. In fact, Kearney remembered, he'd run a marathon recently, hadn't he? Last year, maybe. Or perhaps the one before.
It didn't matter, of course, but his thoughts kept jumping everywhere. White was sitting on the other side of his large oak desk, and was clearly finding this conversation difficult. Strange that someone who usually had so much authority could be reduced to this.
'Paul…'
But he trailed off.
White had never called him by his first name before. It had always been surnames, like a school teacher. It wasn't hard to find alpha males in the police force at the best of times, but White in particular never let you forget who was in charge. He prowled and glared. Sometimes, trapped in his office, you imagined he might forget himself and hit you. Many officers were terrified of him, but today he was so subdued it was almost eerie.
He doesn't know how to handle this.
Kearney actually felt sorry for him.
'Paul, something's been brought to my attention.'
There was no point denying it. He'd been following the case from a distance and heard some of the site names that had been floated about. They were familiar to him. Every time Burrows and his team went out on a knock, he held his breath. He'd never had any doubt this would come out eventually.
The wors
t thing.
'Yes, sir,' he said. 'I know.'
White's gaze flicked up. Common wisdom held that it could strip paint, but what Kearney saw now was closer to confusion. Hurt, even. Kearney's thoughts turned briefly to Simon Wingate, who was probably still sitting down in reception right now. But that was too painful. It was better just to get this over with.
'What is it that you know?' White said.
'Operation Victor, sir.'
'Go on.'
'As part of that investigation, I believe my credit card details will have been found.'
'Where?'
'On websites,' Kearney said. 'Private websites.'
'Jesus, Paul. That's one way of putting it, isn't it?'
'I know what the others are, sir.'
White shook his head. There was a printout on the desk in front of him, and he took a few seconds, ostensibly reading it over.
'DS Burrows,' he said, 'is at your house right now. His team have a warrant to search the premises and seize various materials, including, but not limited to, any computer equipment they find there. You will not be going back home tonight.'
'I understand that, sir.'
'And you won't need to call me that any more.'
'I understand.'
White rested his elbows on the desk and began rubbing his eyes. He kept his fingers straight the whole time.
Had he seen the videos, Kearney wondered. Probably not, if Burrows was still at the house. But he would have been told what they were; there would surely be records of what had been downloaded by whom - access logs, and so on. Kearney's collection was only three videos in total, but the quantity was irrelevant. This type of material was categorised between one and five, with five being the most serious. He knew that all three of the clips on his computer would be ranked four.
And he also knew that, in a moment, White was going to ask him to explain. The prospect made him feel sick.
The reality was he really didn't know. It had started earlier this year, when he'd been investigating the reports of a photograph of Jane Slater appearing online. That photo had not been there, but he had found others instead. And once he began clicking through, he'd been unable to stop himself looking.