Tom Douglas Box Set

by Rachel Abbott

  The inspector knew something was wrong, I’m sure of it. I heard him talking to the crime scene technicians. I walked over to the door of the utility room where they were huddled, and heard him asking them to go over everything again, to make sure there was no way anybody had been in the house. I suppose there was just a chance that my dad could have blocked the cold air vent, but the batteries were the one thing that would never make sense to me. Not unless my father had had an abrupt change of personality or was suffering from early-onset Alzheimer’s.

  The thought of staying in their bungalow that night sent me into a panic. Could I sleep in a house where my parents had lain dead just hours before? I didn’t think I could. I never wanted to come to this sad home ever again. But I didn’t own the flat any more and my best friend was somewhere in the Middle East, so I just slid down the wall to the floor, wrapped my arms around my knees and cried and cried. I heard the policeman ask Robert if he knew of anybody who could help me, and he told the inspector not to worry. He’d take me back to the flat – his flat now – and he would look after me himself.

  The policeman seemed surprised that Robert would do this for me, and I probably should have been too, if I’d been able to think straight. At the time, though, the only thing I cared about was curling up in bed and crying some more, trying to hold the pain inside me, because if I allowed it to escape it would shatter me into pieces. So I let Robert take over. He had already proved himself to be good with Jasmine, and he was so attentive. What else could I do?

  First Dan, and then two months later my parents. It was no surprise that I was totally numb. I was grateful to Robert. So grateful that, after six months, when he asked me to marry him, I said yes. It was the easiest and most obvious thing to do.

  What a fool I was. I walked straight into his trap, and the cage door slammed shut behind me.

  45

  At the end of the day, Tom was ready to go home. He needed quiet thinking time, and his home had an air of tranquillity that he had noticed the very first time he’d come for a viewing. His mother used to say that houses absorbed the personalities of the families that had lived in them, and he had teased her about it unmercifully. If she was right, though, this house must have seen some very happy, peaceful times and it was just what he needed now.

  Of course he had the cottage in Cheshire, which was wonderful for the occasional free weekend, especially when his daughter Lucy could join him, but it was just that bit too far for a daily commute. Fifty miles with no traffic was okay, but the roads around Manchester were chock-a-block in the rush hour, and he needed to be able to get to HQ quickly if necessary.

  It had taken him a bit of time to find this house, because he hadn’t been prepared to settle for another cold shell of a home after the one he’d had in London, and he knew that as she got older Lucy was likely to want to spend more time in Manchester – the shops, the cinema, places to meet friends. The word ‘clubs’ jumped into his brain and he shuddered, thanking goodness that it would be a few years before he had to worry about that.

  It was his intention to stay in Manchester for the foreseeable future, so he had decided that, since money was no object, he would buy a house. It was far too big just for him, but once he had seen it, he had fallen in love with it. Although it was a red-bricked semi in south Manchester, it had some unusual Edwardian features that grabbed him from the word go. The rooms were spacious with high ceilings, and in the sitting room there was an arched feature in front of the two bay windows, both of which still had their original stained glass. The hall was big enough to house his desk, and with its own small fireplace it made a cosy place to work. Two low bookcases crammed with every sort of novel known to man and stripped floorboards with colourful rugs created a welcoming entrance.

  As he opened the front door and stepped inside, he felt his taut limbs begin to relax, and he put his briefcase and keys down on the desk, took his jacket off to fling over the back of a chair, and made his way to the kitchen. It was still light outside at the end of a glorious June day, so he grabbed a bottle of cold beer and took it into the garden.

  Gardening wasn’t really Tom’s thing. Somewhere at the back of his mind he thought he might in the future get interested in growing fruit and vegetables, but only so that he could cook with them. For now, he paid a gardener to keep on top of things. Shameful, but necessary. If he hadn’t taken the easy way out, he would have to spend every day off armed with a lawnmower and a weeding fork, and that wouldn’t leave him much time for Lucy or Leo.

  As he stood surveying his beautifully maintained flowerbeds, Tom’s mind turned to the break-in at his Cheshire cottage, and to Jack. Without his brother, Tom would never have been able to afford this house or the one in Cheshire. He was still maintaining his ex-wife who seemed to feel under no obligation to work for a living. He sometimes wondered how he would have coped without Jack’s money, although he would happily live in a bedsit if it would bring his brother back.

  What he couldn’t imagine, though, is why anybody would want Jack’s papers. He had been dead for over four years now, and Tom had only just retrieved the papers himself from the solicitor’s office. He had been determined to go through them when he was taking his sabbatical, but in the end that period was cut short by the unexpected offer of a chief inspector’s job in Manchester, so he had run out of time. According to the solicitor, Jack’s estate had all been in order, and these were just personal papers, so there had been no sense of urgency.

  A memory sprang into his mind. When Jack had died, his girlfriend had tried to claim that she was the rightful heir to Jack’s millions. His brother’s will had been clear that the money had to go to Tom, but the girlfriend, Melissa, had contested it and lost. She’d only been with Jack for about six months, and she had been a very unlikely choice. Jack was a slightly mad genius, and he needed calmness and serenity around him. Melissa reminded Tom of a Burmese cat – slinky, beautiful, purring and rubbing up against you, desperate for attention. Until she was angry, and then the fangs showed. In fact, Tom remembered asking Jack what the hell he was playing at. Prior to meeting Melissa, Jack had been in a relationship for a few years with a woman called Emma. She was the polar opposite of Melissa. She had a smile that would light up a room. Their relationship had seemed rock solid, and then suddenly it was as if he had lost his mind.

  When the terms of the will were actually made known and Melissa had fought and lost her battle for Jack’s money, she had said that even if she couldn’t have the money she wanted something of Jack’s and had applied to the solicitor for him to release Jack’s papers to her. The solicitor had refused, and Tom had forgotten all about it. Until now.

  Without really knowing why, Tom pulled his mobile from his trouser pocket.

  ‘Steve? Tom Douglas here. Sorry to bother you, but I wonder if you could do me a favour?’

  Tom asked Steve to go to the house and retrieve the spare key from its hiding place, then remove all the papers to somewhere safe. He didn’t know why this felt like a good idea, but it did. And as soon as this case was over, he was going to give those papers the time they deserved.

  Tom ended the call with a promise of a pint sometime soon, and pushed all thoughts of Jack’s papers out of his mind. He needed to get back to work.

  Something had been bugging him all day, something to do with the death of Olivia Brookes’ parents.

  He retrieved his briefcase from the hall and pulled out the file.

  46

  Sophie was relieved that her mum had been advised to stay in hospital for another day. She had so much to do, and she would have been really worried about leaving her at home on her own. The poor woman would probably be terrified from now on.

  Sophie had arranged for an alarm company to come out to the house, and they had recommended a panic alarm next to her mother’s bed. They were also going to change the Yale lock for a five-lever one, so she could ensure the doors were secure when she had to go out. At least if Robert Brookes decided to pay
them another visit, there would be some resistance.

  But Sophie didn’t think he would come back. He was a man on a mission, and she hoped Liv had covered her tracks well enough. With any luck, she would stay hidden from Robert forever, because she couldn’t go back to a life with no freedom, a life in which every minute of her day was closely observed and scrutinised by a man mad enough to plot and scheme to keep her by his side. He was also a man who seemed capable of great violence, although as far as she knew he had never laid a finger on Olivia. Yet.

  In the meantime, there were a few things Sophie had to do, and one of them was to pay a couple of people for their services. She had already sorted out payment for the false papers in the name of Lynn Meadows. They were cash on delivery. But the video work was different. That had been edited and uploaded remotely.

  Sophie couldn’t think of any reason why she would be spotted or recognised, but she felt uncharacteristically nervous as she made her way down a narrow alley in Manchester’s newly revived Northern Quarter, casting furtive glances over her shoulder every now and again. Somehow, this lane seemed to have been overlooked in the local regeneration, and it lacked the excitement and creative vibe of the surrounding area. She wasn’t given to being fanciful, but she felt as if pale faces were lurking behind the black windows, watching and wondering what she was doing there. It was just starting to get dark, and it didn’t feel like a good place to hang around – particularly when she wasn’t exactly fighting fit. She was limping badly, and would seem like an easy target to anybody looking for one.

  She approached a dark brown door, flaking with old paint. There was a buzzer on the wall. No name. She pressed and waited.

  After what seemed to be a long thirty seconds, she heard a buzz and a click as the door opened. She hadn’t been asked to announce herself, but she knew she was being observed. Stuart would never let anybody in unless he was sure they were safe.

  She trudged up the two flights of dark concrete stairs, her bad leg sending stabbing pains that seemed to travel right up to her head with each and every step. Bastard Robert Brookes. Fucking nut job. When she reached the top, she paused to recover her breath. It wasn’t the exercise that had exhausted her, it was the pain. Sweat dripped off her forehead, but she grabbed a tissue from her bag and, tutting with irritation at her own weakness, she scrubbed her face dry.

  When she had recovered, she pushed open another door, and was met by the gloom of Stuart’s studio. Although the stairwell had been dark, this was taking darkness to another level, and the only light came from the monitor that was partly obscured by Stuart’s head. He didn’t turn round.

  ‘Got the money, then?’ he asked, while still spinning the controller on his editing equipment.

  ‘Why else would I be here?’ she responded in a similar dismissive vein.

  As she moved further into the room, she could see Stuart’s face illuminated in the flickering screen. His huge, prominent eyes seemed about to pop out of his head, but they were the only large thing about him. He was as emaciated as a twig, and his head was shaped like an inverted triangle – wide at the top to accommodate the eyes, then narrowing to a pointy chin with a tight mouth. His greasy hair flopped down across his wide forehead, and was tucked behind his ears like a girl’s. As he rotated his controller with one hand, he picked at an angry-looking zit on his chin with the other.

  Stuart was the best, and Sophie had no doubt at all that he would never say a word to anybody about what she had asked him to do. His life outside of one of Her Majesty’s prisons depended on it, because she had far more on him than he had on her. She could have forced him to do it for nothing, but there was always a chance he would have booby-trapped the work, and it seemed fair to pay him.

  She leaned against the wall, taking the weight off her bad leg as she watched him weave his magic. Much as he was a totally unprepossessing git of a man, she was mesmerised by his skill. He could choose the exact spot for the perfect edit, and he was so quick it left her breathless.

  ‘You did a great job, Stu. It was perfect.’

  ‘Of course,’ he answered, not taking his eyes from the screen.

  ‘How long do you think it will take the police to spot it?’

  ‘It all depends whether they’ve got any of the good guys working on it. Some of them are as sharp as needles, some are total tossers who wouldn’t spot the obvious if it was shoved up their arses.’

  ‘Well, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see,’ Sophie responded. It had to work, though.

  ‘I must say, somebody is one very smart cookie,’ Stuart said.

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Well, there was lots of subtle stuff in the shots. The vase of daffodils was an inspiration, really. It wasn’t centre screen – nothing obvious – but there it was. A good guy who is concentrating will have spotted that. And the next day the flowers were gone, and the day after they were back again in the same position. Then there were the clothes – there was just a lot of stuff I would expect even an experienced continuity girl to get wrong, let alone somebody who’s never done anything like this before.’

  ‘Probably bought Continuity for Dummies or something,’ Sophie said dismissively, pushing herself off the wall.

  Stuart turned round and looked at her. ‘Is there such a thing?’ he asked, with a note of wonder.

  ‘I don’t sodding know. I made it up, you wanker.’ Sophie grunted. ‘Anyway, genius guy, here’s your money. All there, and a bit of a bonus because you really pulled it off.’

  Sophie placed an envelope on the desk, moving aside a cardboard box that looked to have at least day-old pizza in it. She was careful not to move any of the half-full coffee cups. She’d done that once and Stuart had yelled at her. If she’d spilled anything on his precious equipment, she was pretty sure she would be dead by now.

  ‘You paid Mack yet?’ Stuart asked, without turning his head. ‘Cos when I pass on my contacts, I like to check they’ve been treated right.’

  ‘Course I have.’ Sophie looked at Stuart’s strange, extra-terrestrial face with the flickering images from the monitor sending patterns of light across it. ‘Is he really called Mack?’ Sophie asked. ‘Or is that just his moniker – you know, Mack the Mac Hacker?’

  ‘Never asked. Don’t much care either, but he’s a bleeding magician. Was in and out of that guy’s FaceTime logs without leaving a trace. Fucking brilliant,’ he muttered. ‘Make sure the door closes properly behind you.’

  Stuart didn’t glance her way again and, realising that this was her dismissal, she braced herself for the return journey down those bloody stairs.

  47

  Tuesday

  By Tuesday morning, Becky was feeling as if the weight of the world was on her shoulders. They had heard back again from the Alderney police, who were continuing with their enquiries but, as yet, nothing had come to light. The sergeant confirmed they had spoken to the accommodation agencies, hotels and B&Bs. A few names had been put forward and they had investigated each of them, but as yet they hadn’t tracked Olivia down – if indeed she was still there. They had to accept the fact that she may never have been there at all, or might well have moved on since she had spoken to Robert the previous week. Which meant she could be anywhere, including under the terrace.

  Even though they were certain that Danush Jahander’s body had been taken away from the house in Robert’s car, Jumbo had got his way and a team was out in the back garden now, using the radar equipment to check the grounds. The rationale was that if Robert had killed once, they had to check for other bodies.

  Tom had told Becky he was convinced they would find nothing, but this had become a murder enquiry and therefore they needed to explore every possibility. He was fairly certain that if Robert had killed Olivia and the children, he wouldn’t have buried them there. But until they knew for sure that this family was safe, they couldn’t take the risk.

  Becky looked across at Tom. He had been quiet this morning too. He’d been puzzling over someth
ing in a file, but as yet he hadn’t shared the details with her.

  They also had the feedback on Robert’s credit card activity from the previous week. Tom had reasoned that he must have stopped for petrol on his route from Newcastle to Manchester on the Wednesday night, but he hadn’t used his credit card once. That was certainly outside his normal practice, and it suggested he wanted no evidence of his trip to be found. However, they did know he had bought some items from John Lewis in Newcastle on Thursday, and the shop had looked into the details. He had bought a knife – and it seemed it was the one in the knife block at the house.

  The store had been incredibly helpful, and had managed to track down the member of staff who had served Robert. Becky had spoken to her on the telephone.

  ‘Was he looking for a specific knife,’ Becky had asked, ‘or was it just a certain type of knife?’

  The sales assistant had sounded slightly breathless, as if she had been running. But Becky knew that it was a kind of strange excitement at being asked questions by the police.

  ‘Oh no. He was very precise,’ she said. ‘Even to the point of having the product code with him. I do remember him, because he kept looking at his watch, as if he needed to be somewhere. He said he was running some kind of event and had nipped out during the lunch break. I tried to get him interested in comparing two or three different knives – you know, just to show that I wasn’t trying to push him into buying an own-brand item.’

  ‘Wasn’t he interested in the Sabatiers?’ Becky asked, remembering that Jumbo had said the rest of the knives were all the same type.

  ‘No. They do look very similar, but he said his wife would “flay him alive” if he came back with the wrong one. He laughed when he said it, though.’