by Alex Caan
‘You know that Neanderthal image is a load of crap,’ he’d told her back at the office, when she’d updated him about her latest encounter with the MINDNET staff. ‘They found skeletons that were old with arthritis when they died; one had a damaged leg. And from that they concluded they were all bent over and dumb and aggressive. They could speak, looked nearly the same as us. Had culture and religion, and it was probably us who butchered them. So, I get what you’re saying. Anderson is a man’s man, probably a misogynist and difficult, but don’t insult our cousin species.’
The look on her face.
Anderson was his sort of man, similar to his own father. Zain understood him, his mentality. He saw it in the groomed cleanliness that wasn’t obvious but was military grade. Short, hair, clipped nails, smart clothes. Shoes the colour of liquorice, they were polished so well. A man who took orders, followed orders.
Zain got that. He took orders. Didn’t always follow them, though. Probably where he and Anderson would diverge.
‘Training recruits. It’s what they make men like me do. Once they have no use for us. It’s our version of horses for glue,’ Anderson said.
‘Inspiring the next generation?’ said Zain.
‘Hardly. They make you into a highly specific engineered machine. A trained killer. Then they expect you to sit in a classroom and teach?’
‘They probably expected you to die early,’ said Zain.
‘Yes. Surviving sometimes isn’t the best option.’
‘You turned to the dark side?’ said Zain – jokingly, he hoped.
Anderson narrowed his eyes, pulled his head up, nostrils enlarged. Not in a joking mood, thought Zain.
‘I make use of my skills, that’s all.’
‘You married?’
‘No. Men like me don’t really get married. Even when we do, it’s only a half truth.’
Zain nodded. Another similarity. ‘How did you find out about Ruby?’
‘I got a call from Mr Byrne, about 5 a.m.’
‘How did he find out?’
‘No idea. Ask him.’
‘DCI Riley is probably on it. You alone when you got the call?’
‘Yes. I work long hours. And I’ll save you the trouble. I have no one that can verify my whereabouts. If I am of interest. Between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m. when I started work again, I was alone. Didn’t speak to anyone.’
Window of opportunity, thought Zain. Here was a man admitting he had one. What was the motive? There had to be one before that time frame became important.
‘Not of specific interest, Mr Anderson. Just asking everyone Ruby might have come into contact with. Expanding our investigation.’
Riley’s words.
‘Now your prime suspect is no longer viable, you mean?’
‘You’ve met him, haven’t you? He’s not right.’
‘You shouldn’t judge him so harshly,’ said Anderson.
‘I judge as I find,’ said Zain. ‘I would’ve thought Dan rubbed you the wrong way. He’s ideal material to get into the army for a year and get the wrongness trained out of him.’
‘I understand Dan. His leg was damaged in a fall. It left him with a limp, from aged five or six. He went through years of torment at school, never allowed to take part in games, the usual stuff boys get up to.’
‘Some boys,’ said Zain. ‘My cousin liked dolls.’
‘Gay?’
‘No, has had two wives and seven children.’
‘Dan was always on the margins. That sort of outsider status builds up an anger inside, a rage. He turned to the net for his sanity. Although I think it was already too late; he was damaged.’
‘How do you know all this?’
‘He invited all his school pals to his birthday party.’
‘The party? The one at chrome?’
‘Yes. He invited his pals, who weren’t really his pals. He had no friends; these were his classmates, year mates. He rubbed their faces in it. How they had come crawling to his party, were drinking his champagne and getting off with the women he’d hired.’
‘You make him sound like a character out of Carrie.’
‘When you’re so hated for so long, I don’t know if you can ever be right again.’
Anderson tapped on his keyboard, brought up the files Zain wanted to see.
‘We checked the trolls, the threatening comments. The majority are from young girls, aged twelve to seventeen. Some older. The pervs, the old men pretending to be teenage girls, they don’t really troll. They send arse-kissing messages, usually, and they were targeting other young girls, fans of Ruby’s, not Ruby herself.’
‘Yeah, let’s all get online, so perverts can get access to our kids,’ said Zain. ‘Makes me sick.’
‘We gave details to the police, when we found them. It’s difficult. Anyone can open a YouTube account; you don’t need a credit card. Unless you want age verification, but none of Ruby’s videos were adult.’
‘How did you find out, then?’
‘Guesswork, instinct. Checking the email addresses used, checking IP addresses. If there are no kids in the house, then we know. Like I said, very few were found.’
‘And the ones threatening Ruby? There must be something?’
‘I sent a list to your colleague, Michelle Cable. Mainly trolls, jealousy reeking from every typed letter. No stalkers sending her messages saying they want to lunch on her kidneys.’
Except for Dan, thought Zain.
‘I think your investigation is probably going to stall, detective. I can sense it. I’m also guessing, right now, a second victim might be just what you need.’
Zain needed a leak on his way out of the MINDNET offices, although Anderson seemed reluctant to let him loose in the building.
Zain was washing his hands. Even the Gents had bottles of Molton Brown soap and moisturisers. That’s when you knew a place had money.
The bathroom door opened, and a man came in. Zain watched him check the cubicles, the urinals.
‘I need to speak to you,’ he said. His voice was shaky, as though stuck in his gullet. ‘Not here, though. You know the British Museum? The Montague Place entrance. Where the stone lions are.’
‘What’s this about?’
‘It’s about Ruby Day. You need to know something; it might help.’
‘When?’
‘Today. Nine p.m.’
They heard the outer door being pushed open as someone else came in, and the man ran into one of the cubicles. Zain swore he could hear the first man’s heart beating, although it was probably his own.
Chapter Seventy-seven
Kate watched the video in the conference room back at Regus House. Michelle circled the figure on her tablet in digital red paint, the image transferring to the plasma screen.
‘It’s the back entrance to Windsor Court,’ she said.
Kate watched the figure, at first shaded by night and then bathed in the fluorescent security light, until he was out of range. The lights went off, and there was darkness again. She checked the timestamp at the foot of the screen: 00:34.
The images spooled forward and, thirty minutes later, he left. In his right hand he was carrying a folder full of paper.
‘I think he must have dumped the contents – the stuff we later found in the rubbish bins – out of camera shot.’
The figure was recorded by the immobile camera as he walked through the back gate of Windsor Court. The screen flipped to another shot, this time taken from a traffic cam by the overpass on Edgware Road.
‘That’s his car. I checked against the DVLA database.’
‘Excellent work, Michelle.’
Kate turned to Zain, who was slouching forward in his chair, tapping his fingers on the table.
‘I knew it,’ he said. ‘Ruby’s bedroom was just too clean, too ordered. Too paperless. The bastard must have cleared it out.’
Kate pictured the scene Harris was painting, imagined Karl Rourke rummaging around Ruby’s bedroom. Hours after she had disap
peared, just before her parents made the call to the police.
‘This makes his alibi a load of bullshit. His wife said he was home from about seven, until he went back to work around eight-thirty the next day,’ said Zain.
‘He was also the signatory on Dan’s place out in Hampshire,’ said Kate. ‘Michelle, I need you to trace Rourke’s car. See if you get a hit of it leaving London, heading out towards Winchester. And contact Pelt, he’s still with Hampshire police. See if he can get them to do a trace at their end.’
‘The parents must have lied as well,’ said Zain. ‘The whole lot of them have been messing with us.’
‘The Days must have known he was there at their flat. They must have invited him,’ she said. ‘The question is why?’
‘Let’s haul his arse in, and find out,’ said Zain.
‘Bring Mrs Rourke in as well. I want to know why she lied about his alibi.’
Susan Rourke was leaking information. Her wedding ring was being pulled off her finger, twisted around the knuckle, then pushed back in place. She did it repeatedly as Kate spoke to her.
Susan was dressed in a cream jumper, striped collar poking over the top, and tight coffee-coloured slacks. She looked like the sort of woman who lived in a commercial for a ready-made suburban housewife.
Apart from the eyes. They were leaking information, too, her pupils contracting and expanding as Kate spoke of her husband.
‘I have to remind you how serious this is, and that I recommend the presence of a legal representative,’ said Kate.
Susan shook her head.
‘You are waiving the right to counsel?’
‘Yes,’ she said. Her voice was quiet.
‘When we questioned you about your husband’s whereabouts, you said he was with you from 7 p.m. the night Ruby disappeared. That he was at home throughout the evening and night, not leaving the house until eight-thirty the following morning. You were certain he hadn’t left.’
‘Yes,’ said Susan.
‘Mrs Rourke . . .’
‘Call me Susan,’ she said, snapping. A sliver of anger across her face, in her eyes, the ring on her finger tugged.
‘Susan, we now have evidence to show that Karl Rourke was not at home during the hours you claim. We have him on CCTV, at Windsor Court, arriving at approximately twelve thirty-four. This would suggest he left the house you share somewhere around eleven-thirty at night. Is that correct?’
Susan stared into Kate’s eyes, deliberating. Balancing.
‘Lying to the police is perjury, Susan. We can already prosecute you. I don’t think that would be to our advantage, though. Honesty would help us clarify our next steps.’
‘Karl wasn’t home. He didn’t come home after work. He came back at about 2 a.m. I’m sorry. He asked me to lie; he said he couldn’t explain. He asked me to do it for the sake of the children.’
‘You have no idea where he was between the times he claims he was with you?’
‘No.’
‘Does he do this a lot? Not come home, not tell you where he’s been?’
Susan laughed. ‘I sound pathetic, don’t I? I bet if your husband did that, you would ask him, wouldn’t you?’
‘Have you never questioned him?’
‘No. It’s work. He always gives me that generic excuse. And, like a fool, I accept it.’
‘Where do you think he might be when he doesn’t come home?’
Susan chewed the inside of her cheek, her eyes wandering around the interview room, resting on Kate when she was done taking it all in.
‘I try not to. I cram my days with so much that I don’t have a place for paranoia. What would take over my thoughts otherwise? Karl with another woman? Gambling? Or is he genuinely so busy he needs to work odd hours? I don’t fully understand his business, and I don’t pay attention to it.’
‘Do you think there might have been another woman?’
‘Sometimes. When I let myself dwell on it. Most of the time, like I said, I’m kept busy. With the house, the children. His children, his perfect house, our perfect life.’
‘Do you have any idea who the other woman might be?’
‘It’s obvious, really. There was only ever one woman he was obsessed with. I thought when he sold out, when he gave up his list to MINDNET . . . I was a fool. I thought he would give her up, that she would be out of our lives. It didn’t happen though. His obsession just grew.’
‘Who are you referring to, Mrs Rourke?’
Susan turned eyes of steel to Kate, and the wedding band was pulled right to the nail, where it could fall off.
‘Ruby Day,’ she said, letting the ring clatter on the table, and roll off the edge.
Chapter Seventy-eight
Karl Rourke was nervous, sweating, pacing the interview room. He didn’t want a brief, he said; he was a lawyer, he could handle anything they accused him of. He sat down, but his body was dancing in the chair.
‘Karl, you claimed that on the night of Ruby’s disappearance, you were at home with your wife, Susan Rourke. At the time, Mrs Rourke backed up this claim.’
Kate was reading from her prepared opening gambit.
‘Since that time, CCTV footage has emerged of you at Windsor Court approximately five hours after Ruby disappeared. You were there for thirty minutes, after which the CCTV shows you leaving.’
Karl looked surprised. The CCTV to the back gate was not as obvious as the one to the front entrance. He probably hadn’t picked up on it.
‘I don’t have anything to hide,’ he said.
‘The video footage calls into question the alibi you provided us with for the night Ruby disappeared. After confronting your wife with this new evidence, she has now withdrawn her version of your alibi.’
‘Bitch,’ said Rourke, almost spitting the word.
‘She claims you were not at home until 2 a.m., having left home at 8 a.m. the day before. Meaning we currently have no idea where you were during the time Ruby disappeared.’
Rourke’s face was salmon-coloured. He wiped the sweat forming around his nose, before it dropped onto the table in front of him. His jacket was off. Kate saw the sweat stains expanding under his armpits.
‘My wife’s a liar, detective. I was at home from 7 p.m. I left the house just before midnight, once the Days had called me to ask me where Ruby was. And then I returned home again at 2 a.m., after I left Windsor Court.’
‘Your wife is very clear that you didn’t go home after work, that she didn’t see you until 2 a.m. Why would she lie?’
‘Because she’s being . . . she’s just having a turn. She’s got OCD. She’s pissed off I work so hard, and this is her axe grinding.’
‘You expect me to believe your wife is lying to the police?’
‘Yes. I told her to keep quiet about me leaving when I did, I admit that. I went to see Ruby’s parents, to see if I could help them out. That’s all.’
‘Why? Ruby was no longer your client. Did they invite you over?’
‘Yes. They were going crazy, wondering where Ruby was. I went round to help calm them down.’
Kate pressed a button on the laptop sitting between them.
‘Have a look,’ she said. ‘You are carrying a file of some sort in your right hand. When you left the building. We also found letters and documents from Ruby’s bedroom in trash bags, dumped in the waste area. What was in the file, Mr Rourke?’
‘Nothing. Just paperwork I needed. Business stuff.’
‘You have to do better than that, Karl. She was with MINDNET. What possible business documentation could she have that would be of interest to you?’
‘It’s the truth. Just some old invoices. I asked her to get me copies, she had them in a file. I saw them when I was at the flat. And I didn’t dump her stuff. Ruby must have done that herself, before she left.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ said Kate. ‘I want to see that file, I want to see what these documents are.’
‘Why? I was at home when she disapp
eared.’
‘Just you and your wife?’
‘Yes.’
‘What about the children?’
‘They were at a sleepover, or something. Or school trip.’
‘Was it planned? Them not being at home?’
‘I know what you’re doing. I did it on the night they wouldn’t be home. You know I should just say “no comment” until you realise you’ve fucked up. I’m helping you, though. I hope you appreciate that.’
‘Where were you on the evening Ruby Day disappeared, Karl? And don’t say at home.’
‘Look, check my mobile, it will confirm where I was.’
‘Mobiles can be left anywhere; it doesn’t mean you were with your phone,’ said Kate.
Michelle was working on getting a trace of Rourke’s phone. That would help them to at least work out which of the Rourkes was lying.
Chapter Seventy-nine
Zain looked out over the gardens of Buckingham Palace, his eyes needing a break from his screen. He wondered how secure the royal residence was, if someone like him could get a view like this. The sort of view a sniper could use.
He sat back down at his desk. Only Michelle was in the office, working away at trying to get a trace on Karl Rourke’s phone, and on his car registration. She was following protocol, asking the relevant agencies for help. Zain felt his fingers itch. He could crack Rourke’s phone within minutes, see if his internal GPS gave him away. He also missed access to the software that could trace a car through the thousands of cameras across London.
The F&M toffee had managed to raise a cordial hello to him today. He let his antsy tendencies dissipate, left Michelle to her methods. They would find out what they needed to, even using her simple techniques.
He chided himself then. He heard how arrogant he sounded, even to himself. He didn’t mean to; he just believed that if there was a smarter way to do things, they should take it. They owed it to the people they worked for. People like Ruby.
Shut up, Zain, he said to himself, and tapped away, trying to work out MINDNET’s internet presence.
Everything was linked to Jed Byrne – all internet articles, Financial Times reports, even their Wikipedia entry. Because that was always factual. He needed a spider web diagram to work out who MINDNET were. They couldn’t just spring up, a company like that, with the sort of resources they had, the offices they had.