by Luca Veste
Jess choked back, more crying. ‘Yeah, loads. No answer. Going straight to voicemail.’
Sarah stood up, her legs still a little wobbly from the unexpected sleep. ‘I’ll ring direct. See if I can get hold of him. Don’t worry, Jess. We’ll find him. I’m coming round to yours now.’
‘Thanks, Sarah,’ Jess replied. ‘Tell Bear that I want everything done. The works.’
Sarah ended the call and began scrolling for the direct line to David’s office. Finding it, she dialled and waited.
‘Rossi.’
Sarah brushed a hand through her hair, checking the mirror in the hall for a second before pulling her boots out of the shoe rack. ‘Hi Laura, it’s Sarah.’
‘Hi Sarah. Sorry, he’s not here. Have you tried his mobile?’
Sarah paused in the hallway, one boot on unzipped, the other hanging limply in her other hand. ‘Where is he?’
‘He’s gone to chase up a lead. As you can imagine, we’re a bit swamped here. What’s up?’
Sarah breathed in, pulling on her other boot. Began telling Rossi of Jess’s phone call.
When she was done, platitudes over, she left the house.
Hoping everything was going to be okay.
Hoping David wasn’t going to be in danger.
Hoping against hope. Against reality.
34
While his wife was still sleeping on their sofa, having not yet been woken by Jess, Murphy continued listening to Brannon on the phone.
‘I can’t believe you don’t know this …’
‘Get over it, Brannon,’ Murphy barked back. ‘I don’t have time for fucking about. What happened?’
‘Jesus … it’s outrageous this.’ A long sigh which sounded as fake as Brannon’s intermittent tan. ‘Kevin Thornhill’s mum went first. She was out shopping and got mugged. Had her nose broken, but it brought on a heart attack. She died a month or so later, from complications with the surgery she had afterwards. The scrotes who mugged her were never found, even though there was CCTV of the attack …’
‘I remember that,’ Murphy said. ‘Caused quite a shitstorm. Seemed to disappear eventually …’
‘Yeah, except some of us don’t forget easily. His dad especially. He died not long after. Stroke or heart attack. I forget which. It’s not been easy on the family, and now this.’
Murphy thought for a second. ‘Do you know what the brother looks like?’
‘No idea. Hang on …’
The phone went silent again. Murphy tried to use the time to make things fit but couldn’t place the pieces together.
‘There’s no photos of him here, but Kev’s missus knows what he looks like she reckons, although it’s been years. What for?’
‘Throw the news on and see if she recognises the picture of Alan Bimpson that’s been released.’
‘You’re not thinking he’s—’
‘Just do it, will you?’
‘Fine. Wait there. Got it on now. Jan, do you know that face, do you recognise it?’
Murphy waited as a muffled response came.
‘She doesn’t think so.’
Murphy’s shoulders slumped. ‘Okay, no problem. Could just be a coincidence then.’
‘Right you are. Listen, we’ll need to talk to the boss when this is all done. I’ve got some grievances …’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ Murphy replied, ending the call before Brannon could go on any further.
‘What’s that all about?’ Rossi said from behind him.
Murphy swivelled in his chair. ‘Something or nothing. Can’t quite decide yet. Any news?’
‘We’ve had word from on the ground. Bootle is clear. Our man isn’t there any more. They’re trying to trace him now.’
Murphy laced his fingers together behind his head. ‘I hate this. Feel like a spare part just sitting around here.’
‘Tell me about it.’
‘Then we need to do something,’ Murphy replied, sitting forward. ‘Harris, get in here.’
DC Harris came scuttling back in response to Murphy’s shout. ‘Yeah.’
‘You’re with me again. We’re going to check out some of these directors’ addresses. See if we can get a lead on Bimpson.’
‘Okay …’
Murphy could see the reticence plastered all over the young DC’s face. ‘Don’t worry. First sign of trouble, we’ll be out of there before anything can happen.’
‘No, it’s fine. Honest.’
‘Tell your face,’ Murphy replied. ‘Let me just clear it with the bosses.’
Murphy lifted the phone and dialled DCI Stephens’s number. As he explained the situation, he watched Rossi print off the list of addresses they currently had for the directors for Bimpson’s property firm.
‘David, we’re quite busy here. What can I do for you?’
‘We’re going to head out and see if we can track down some info about Bimpson’s property firm. There’s a list of directors, so we’re going to see if there’s any of them who might know where he could be …’
‘We’re pretty much decided on where that is, David, but you’re free to check things out.’
Murphy stood up. ‘Where do you think it is? What have you got?’
‘Calm down, David. It was you who gave us the lead. We looked at what he was caught saying in Bootle on camera. We reckon he’s going back to the farm. We’re getting set for a long night.’
Murphy thought about it, tried to make the piece fit. If he chewed off one end and forced it in, it kind of worked.
Kind of didn’t.
‘If you think that’s what he means, sounds like a plan. We’ll do this lot here then, keep us busy.’
‘Good.’
The call ended, Murphy taking the proffered piece of paper from Rossi and motioning to Harris to follow him.
Something wasn’t right.
Rossi found the information before too long. Trying to find a link between Alan Bimpson and the directors named at his company, it had become even more obvious that Bimpson was a blag name, a pseudonym used to keep his identity a secret from the beginning. Going back even further than when this case started, to when he’d first invested in the youth club and Kevin Thornhill’s vision.
But it still didn’t make sense. Had he really been planning the events of the last few months for that long? Rossi checked the date on the photograph, the single one they had held before he’d become the star of the new reality show in Liverpool.
Scousers Shooting Scallies.
Rossi didn’t think even Channel 5 would take that show. Never mind ITV2.
The date was over eighteen months before. If Bimpson had started taking teenagers seven months before, Dean Hughes being the first, it made little sense that he would have started using a different name in his official records that far back. There could have been a whole host of reasons that he’d given the Liverpool Echo a different name, but would he have used one for his own company?
Rossi chewed on the end of the pen she was holding, before spitting it out when she realised she’d picked it up out there in the main incident room.
‘Don’t know what they’re carrying …’
She went to her Internet browser and typed the property firm’s name into Google, waiting for the inevitable deluge of results that always came. Resisting the initial urge to click on the firm’s website, she instead clicked on the images tab.
It was there, a few scrolls from the top of course, but there all the same.
A picture of them all together. A major deal announced of some kind, in one of those magazines that only the trade would normally see. Now these things always end up on a website no one ever visits.
The phone rang on Murphy’s desk, Rossi glancing at it before looking at the picture, clicking on the site it was attached to and waiting for it to load. She stood up, answering the phone to the stricken and upset Sarah, replacing the handset when she was done.
Torn.
Rossi hated talking to DCI Stephens, avoided it as much
as possible. A probable reason she had never really fought to make DI was because she could do without having to speak to her too often. It was much easier that Murphy was her buffer. It was nothing against the boss – Rossi just felt there was always a study being taken. An are you as good as me, or better? type of scrutiny. It was always the same with women in the police. Stupid, but true.
Rossi couldn’t be arsed with all of that. Was constantly being told about it, but just didn’t care. She stopped being competitive about stupid stuff back in school.
She picked up the phone anyway and called DCI Stephens.
‘Stephens,’ the voice almost barked back at Rossi over the phone.
‘Er, hello … it’s DS Laura Rossi.’
‘Yes.’
Wasn’t even a question. A statement of a yes.
Mannaggia …
‘Yeah, I’ve just had a call from the mother of the boy Bimpson is supposed to have taken …’ Rossi said, hoping the little lie wouldn’t come back on her.
‘Allegedly. We’re still looking into it, but I have to say the witnesses aren’t exactly the most solid we’ve ever had …’
‘Right … it’s just that the lad who’s supposed to be taken is Peter White. It’s Murphy’s godson.’
‘Oh …’
‘So that might be worth looking into a bit more then?’ Rossi said, trying to keep her voice flat and calm.
‘Yes. For David’s peace of mind of course. In fact, why hasn’t he called me instead?’
Rossi almost lied for no reason, forgetting Murphy had already cleared it with the boss that he was going out.
Already forming a habit of lying for her DI. Not good.
‘He’s out isn’t he … doesn’t know that he’s gone.’
There was a beat of silence, then DCI Stephens said, ‘Okay. Let’s keep it that way. I don’t want him going all rogue cop on us. Got enough on our plates. Any news on finding out more about our man?’
Rossi remembered the photograph she’d just found online. ‘Possibly. Just checking it out now.’
‘Good. Okay. Right, well I’m being called back, so just call if you find anything of actual help.’
Rossi ended the call, still holding back the Italian curses that were threatening to be spewed out at her boss. Never a good idea to call your boss a bitch, even in a different language.
She walked back around the desk, moving her mouse so the screen came back to life. The website was on there, the photo at the top something entirely different. She scrolled down, trying to find the photo she’d found in her search, wading through a couple of dozen news items about various housing deals and market information from around the country. It was an old site, the newest item having been posted almost a year earlier, which made Rossi wonder what had happened in the meantime.
Another one bites the dust.
It was almost buried, in between a report on interest rates and the housing prices in Bristol, but there it was.
Aspire Properties announce multimillion deal to build properties in the North West.
There, smiling across the whole board, were the directors of the property firm, all dressed smartly, suited and booted, standing on what looked like some sort of wasteland.
A quote from one of the directors.
‘This is a great opportunity for us to create a new community,’ Simon Thornhill told us this week. ‘We’re all really looking forward to creating new homes for first-time buyers. When I first started this company over ten years ago, I always envisaged that this would be what could be achieved. I hope it’s just the start of many of these new, small communities we can help to build.’
Shit.
Rossi looked at the picture again, looking across the faces to find Kevin Thornhill. Found him near the middle, his arm around a grinning, full-haired, shaven man in his thirties.
The last year or so had not been kind to Simon Thornhill.
Or, as Rossi and Murphy, had come to know him, Alan Bimpson.
35
Murphy handed the list of four names and addresses over to DC Harris and put his seatbelt on. Turned the radio to BBC Merseyside, and listened to the growing fear and revulsion echo around him from the speakers.
‘Where are we going first?’ DC Harris said, as Murphy drove out of the car park, turning left onto St Anne Street, past a scrum of media which had assembled. Most shouted unanswered questions at the car, others stared at phones and tablets, probably wishing they were closer to the real action in the city.
And Murphy didn’t mean Concert Square.
If it bleeds, it leads.
‘The obvious, I suppose. Simon Thornhill. If anything, I’m not sure he’ll even know about his brother yet.’
‘This address is familiar …’
‘So we can at least tell him about that,’ Murphy continued, not listening to DC Harris mumble under his breath. ‘What’s the address?’
‘Eaton Road in West Derby. I swear there’s something about that road name …’
‘It’s about ten minutes’ walk away from where we found the first victim. That’ll be all. Either that, or it’s the fact that Melwood is just up the road from there.’
‘Yeah, must be,’ DC Harris replied, tucking the piece of paper in the side pocket on the passenger side door. ‘So we’re just going to knock and see if he’s in?’
Murphy allowed a marked police car to speed past him at the junction, lights flashing but no siren. He didn’t think the late-night caution of not using them would be needed that night. He couldn’t imagine many people in the city would be having early nights. ‘Yeah, just see if we can fill in the blanks about the other people on the list. See if we can track down Bimpson in case things don’t go as planned elsewhere.’
‘Sound.’
Murphy’s phone vibrated in his pocket, but he ignored it again. He knew it’d be Sarah checking up on him. Resolved to call her back when he parked up. He drove down Everton Valley with ease, traffic much quieter than it usually was, even at that time of night.
‘Roads are dead …’ Harris said, from beside him.
‘There’s something in that sentence that might tell you why,’ Murphy replied, driving past first Goodison Park, then Stanley Park, and wondering if there was ever a time when the possibility of a football stadium being built there wasn’t being widely discussed. Wondered what would happen now Anfield was going to be expanded instead.
Onto Queens Drive, passing only a car or two on the entire journey.
‘Spooky,’ Murphy said, as the combination of a usually busy A road as Queens Drive and lack of bodies on the streets became starker.
‘Almost like a ghost town,’ Harris replied.
‘Yeah,’ Murphy said, peering into the distance at what looked like the flashing blue and red lights of a marked car. ‘Think there’s something going on up ahead though.’
Murphy slowed the car as they passed. A couple of uniforms talking to a group of four teenagers as they leant on a garden wall, hands out to their sides as one by one they were searched, pockets turned out. Harris put his window down at just the right time to catch one particularly hard-looking kid of no more than fifteen shout, ‘We’ll sort him ourselves. Not like you lot are gonna do anythin’ abar ’im.’
Murphy carried on driving as Harris pressed the switch for his electric window. ‘Guess there’ll be a fair bit of that about tonight,’ Harris said, staring ahead. ‘Load of scallies thinking they’re a match for a man who’s proper tooled-up.’
‘You’re not wrong. Which is why it’s hopefully coming to an end already. Just hope they’re right about the farm being where he’s headed. God knows where else he’ll be if not.’
Murphy turned left onto Alder Road, another leafy part of the city that was often overlooked, past Alder Hey Children’s Hospital. A car passed them by on the opposite side of the road, the first they’d seen in a while.
For such a normally busy city, the almost-empty roads were telling their own story.
A
couple of minutes later, Murphy was checking house numbers on Eaton Road, finding the one they were looking for in the darkness only by Harris switching on his torch and shining it at the doors, the streetlights not giving enough illumination to see the houses properly.
‘That’s the one,’ Harris said, Murphy pulling into a space between two parked cars a little further on. ‘Nice house.’
‘They all are down here. West Derby was all right until a few years back. Getting worse though.’
Harris murmured agreement as he got out the car, leaving Murphy alone for a few seconds as he took his seatbelt off and went to follow him. Thinking on, he grabbed his usual kit, hoping DC Harris was also holding his.
They passed a few houses, leaving the bigger semi-detached ones behind as they found the one they were looking for – a smaller relation, but still sizeable. A red-painted garage door separated the house from next door, who had built an extension over their own.
‘Lights are on,’ Harris said, as they approached the front door.
Murphy checked his watch but couldn’t make out the dial. ‘What is it … about midnight now?’
Harris pulled out his phone, something it hadn’t occurred to Murphy to do. ‘Ten minutes before.’
‘We’re lucky then.’
Murphy walked behind Harris up the short paved driveway, the cracks numerous, the desperate need for replacement becoming more apparent by the footstep.
Murphy noticed the curtain twitching to his right, as Harris, having already reached the front door, turned to look at him. Murphy stopped, peering into the front garden at the overgrown weeds, back at the cracked, flaking paint on the windowsills, only slightly illuminated by the light from within the house.
Dead flowers in a pot next to the front door.
‘What’s up?’ Harris said, his voice low, his right index finger on the doorbell, pressed down.
‘Not sure …’ Murphy replied, still taking in the facade of a house that didn’t really say named director of a massive property firm.
‘Doorbell’s not working,’ Harris said, turning back around, clenching a fist and knocking rapidly on the old wooden door.