by Tom Weaver
'It's an ongoing investigation.'
'Maybe I can help.'
'I don't think so.'
'How do you know?'
'Because I know,' he said, his voice simmering for the first time. 'I'm going to level with you here, David. I need you to step back from the case. The only reason I can give you is that, by you sticking your nose in here, you're jeopardizing a parallel investigation.'
'You've got another case linked to Megan's disappearance?'
He leaned forward. 'I can see your mind ticking over there, David. But whatever you think is going on here, it isn't.'
'You've got another disappearance?'
'No.'
'Then what?' He didn't reply, and this time I sighed myself. You might want to take a refresher course where negotiation is concerned, DCI Phillips. We've all got to make a living.'
'This is going to turn out bad for you, David.'
'Is that a threat?'
'No,' Phillips said, giving me his best innocent look. 'We're not in the business of threats here. We're the police.
We respond to threats. But I'm telling you now: if you get in the way, we won't hesitate to push you aside.'
Thanks for the heads-up.'
He got to his feet. 'I'm going to make this easy for you, okay? Charles Bryant and his father are part of a murder investigation now. You can throw the dog in there too, for all I care. The one thing I want to make absolutely crystal clear for you is this: you don't even think about looking into the Bryant murder, and you don't come near us on anything to do with the Carver disappearance if it overlaps with lines of enquiry we're following with Bryant. Understood?'
I didn't move. Just stared back at him.
Your case….' He shook his head. We worked all the angles you're working. We worked them better, with more manpower and more experience. We found nothing. But that doesn’t mean the case is finished. It just means we're coming at it from another angle. And, like I said, if you get in the way…'
I smiled at him. 'So you do have another lead?'
He shrugged. You mull it over. I can't tell you anything else, but I can assure you that this DIY detective shite is going to come back and bite you on the arse.'
His eyes lingered on me as I tried to figure out exactly what it was he was hiding. Then he turned and left the room.
* * *
Chapter Nineteen
I'd been waiting about five minutes when the door opened again. It wasn't Phillips or Davidson this time, but another man. He was in his mid forties, at least six-two, broad - but thirty pounds overweight with messy red hair and blotchy skin. He looked like he hadn't slept in months. Once he might have been a good-looking guy, but something had rubbed away at him so only the shadows of that man remained.
In one of his hands, he was cradling a mug of coffee. In the pocket of his jacket, a small spiral notepad poked out with a pen wedged in the top. He held the door in place, about two inches shy of the frame, and placed the pad on the floor in the gap to keep it open. Then he left it there and came over and sat down opposite me.
'Mr Raker?'
I nodded.
'My name's Colm Healy.'
He was southern Irish. He sipped on the coffee and flicked a look back towards the door. The pad was still there, holding it open. I studied him. He doesn’t want to use the intercom to buzz back out. Which means he's either lazy - or he's not supposed to be here. He turned back to me. 'How you doing?'
'I'm sitting in a police station.' I said. 'What could be better?'
He smiled. 'They been treating you nicely?'
'Five-star service.'
'Good.' He looked again at the door. 'I'm not going to take up much of your time here. I just need to ask you a few questions.'
'Your pals just asked me a few questions.'
'I know,' he said. 'Luckily for you, I've got some more.'
'Why?'
'Why what?'
'Why are you here?'
'Like I said, I've got a few quest-'
'I know what you said.'
He paused, a serious expression settling across his face. Then a smile cracked; he wasn't amused, he was just trying to tell me he was a reasonable guy. 'Are you playing hardball, Mr Raker? Is that it?'
'Where's Phillips?'
'Never mind about Phillips.'
'You two don't get on?'
He pushed his coffee aside and reached into his back pocket. Took out his warrant card and laid it down in front of me. Next to a picture of a younger version of him it said DETECTIVE SERGEANT COLM HEALY.
'I worked on the Megan Carver case,' he said, and glanced towards the door again. 'So I'd like you to answer a few questions for me. That way we can stop messing around and get on with the business of finding her.' He smiled his best shit-eating grin. 'Is that okay with you?'
'I've already told Phillips everything I know.'
He sighed. 'I'm going to level with you, Mr Raker. Me and Phillips…' He leaned forward, his voice dropping to a whisper. 'We don't get on. If I have to spend more than a couple of minutes in his company, I want to put my fist through a bloody wall. He rubs me up the wrong way. He rubs a lot of people up the wrong way here. The guy's got a rod up his arse.'
'At least we agree on something.'
'Do you think Megan Carver is still alive?'
I looked at him. There had been a tremor of desperation in his voice. I leaned in even closer to him and this time I could smell the aftershave on the collar of his shirt and the coffee on his breath.
'Mr Raker?'
'I don't know.'
His eyes narrowed. You don't know — or you won't tell?'
'I don't know.'
He glanced towards the door again. "We might be able to help each other here.'
'How?'
'You scratch my balls, I scratch yours.'
I smiled. I didn't particularly want any man scratching my balls, but I was intrigued by what his play might be. Five minutes after Phillips warns me off my case, another cop turns up and tells me he can help me if we meet halfway.
'So… you want to dance?' he asked.
I didn't reply.
Healy's eyes narrowed again, like he'd second-guessed me. 'That's disappointing' He stood. 'I could have helped you.'
'I don't even know you.'
'You don't need to,' he said. "We don't have to move in together. You tell me what you know, I tell you what I know. After that, we go our separate ways.'
'Why?'
'I already told you why.'
'No, you didn't. You told me you worked the Carver case, but we both know that's not true.' I nodded towards the pad wedging open the door. We both know you're not supposed to be here.'
We looked at each other; a face-off. After a while, he shrugged again, and made a move for the door. Give him something. See what his angle is.
'Wait a sec.'
He turned back to me. I reached into my jacket pocket and removed the folded-up printout of the man from Tiko's. I placed it down on the table, turning it so Healy could see. 'You want to help me?'
He stepped back in towards the table. Nodded.
'Tell me who this is.'
He picked up the photograph, his eyes moving from left to right, taking in as much of the face, and the scene around it, as possible. There wasn't a lot else to see but the features of the man. I'd cropped it in as close to his head as I could get. Kaitlin had recognized the surroundings as Tiko's. Healy wouldn't.
'What's this?' he said.
You didn't come across him during the Carver investigation?'
His eyes flicked to me. Frowned. 'Now why would I have done that?'
A weird answer. I leaned back in my seat.
'I don't know,' I said.' Why would you?'
'Do you know who he is?'
'No. Do you?'
He didn't answer.
'Do you?'
He placed the picture back down on the desk. 'You want my advice, David?' he said, ignoring my question and
calling me by my first name now.
'Not really.'
'Well, I'm gonna give it to you.' He picked up his coffee cup for the final time, and nodded at the picture. You want to spend less time with your nose in the history books, and more time trying to find out where the hell Megan Carver is.'
'What are you talking about?'
'This prick,' he said, pressing a finger to the face of the man in the photo. 'How's he going to help you?'
'What do you mean?'
He looked at me, like he couldn't decide if I was joking or not. 'What do you think I mean? Your guy in the picture there — how's he going to help find Megan when he's been buried in the fucking ground for a hundred years?'
* * *
Chapter Twenty
I stared at Healy across the interview room. 'What are you talking about?'
He glanced at the door, then back to the photo on the desk in front of me. 'You ever heard of Milton Sykes?'
I frowned. 'The serial killer?'
'Right. Old school. Kidnapped and killed thirteen women just over a hundred years ago and buried them so well no one's ever been able to find them. Sat there happily admitting he'd taken them, but wouldn't tell the police where he put the bodies. Probably thought he was Jack the Ripper — all smoke and mirrors and mystery — but all he really was, was a fucking arsehole.'
I glanced at the photo. 'So?'
'So if someone's given that to you, they're taking the piss.'
'It's not Milton Sykes.'
'It looks exactly like him.'
'It's not Sykes.'
'It's Sykes. Open your eyes.'
I shook my head. Short of screaming in his face, he was unlikely to understand how certain I was. 'I'm telling you now, this isn't Milton Sykes.'
'Face it. You've been taken for a ride.'
This is a still from CCTV footage taken six months ago.'
He took a step back towards me, the smell of aftershave and coffee coming with him again. His eyes flicked across the photograph, as if satisfying himself he was right. Then he shrugged. 'Look, believe whatever you want to believe. I don't care whether it is or it isn't. It doesn’t help me either way.'
'So what helps you?'
'What?'
'You're not interested in Megan. So what are you interested in?'
He was at the door now, fingers wrapped around it. He opened it a fraction and looked out through the gap. When he saw no one was coming, he turned back to me. Glanced at the photograph. Picked up his pad. Didn't say anything.
'Come on, Healy.'
Two uniformed officers had stopped outside the door, chatting.
'Why are you standing here now?' I asked.
He looked out into the corridor again, nodding at the officers. They nodded back, before saying goodbye to one another and disappearing from view.
'I have my reasons,' he said.
And then he was gone.
They made me wait outside the CID office when we were done. Through the door I could see Phillips and Davidson at the back of the room, close to a wall full of photographs, chatting to someone. I recognized his picture from the papers: DCI Jamie Hart.
He was thin, gaunt, with closely cropped blond hair, and wore the tired, put-upon look of a man who spent most of his life inside the walls of the station. His eyes, though, were different: fast, bright, lively, darting to meet mine every few seconds as Phillips, perched on the edge of his desk, spoke to him.
As I waited for them, I took in the walls of the office: the photographs, most too small to make out; a map of the city, littered with tacks and scrawled all over in marker pen; pieces of notepaper pinned adjacent to that; and — off to the side - a thin, vertical series of stickies with numbers on each: 2119, 8110, 44, 127, 410, 3111, 34. Something next to that also caught my attention: a blown- up black-and-white photocopy of Megan. It was the same picture I'd found of her on her digital camera, standing outside the block of flats. What have they got on her?
I glanced at Phillips and Hart, then removed my mobile phone. The best bit about voluntary attendance was that you didn't have to sign over your personal effects. I raised the phone in front of me so it looked like I was texting, then quickly went to the camera option, zoomed in and took the best shot of the wall that I could manage. It was blurry and half lit - but it would have to do.
Seconds later, Phillips led Hart out towards me.
'David,' he said, as he came through. 'This is DCI Hart.'
We shook hands. I made a show of pausing briefly, as if to send a message, and took in Hart properly. Then something else registered with me: Hart and Phillips were both DCIs. They worked out of the same station. They even worked out of the same office. Usually there was one ranking officer and a series of sergeants and constables.
Here, the balance was off. Ten officers maximum, two of whom were DCIs. It was top heavy in a way I'd never seen before.
'I understand you're working my case,' Hart said, disrupting my train of thought. There was a smile on his face. I didn't know him well enough to tell whether it was genuine or not - but somehow I doubted it.
'Yeah, looks that way.'
You think this Bryant kid was murdered because he knew Megan?' he asked, launching straight in.
'I doubt it,' I lied.
'So what's your take?'
'Charlie Bryant had a disrupted last year or so. From what I can tell, he wasn't spending a lot of time at school, so he had to be spending his time somewhere.'
'And?'
'And maybe he got in with the wrong crowd.'
'His father too?'
I smiled at Hart. He was trying to corner me. I didn't want to lead myself anywhere I didn't have to go, so I just shrugged and said nothing.
'Petty stealing,' Phillips said, picking things up, 'a little vandalism, underage drinking - that's the wrong crowd where Charlie Bryant comes from. Having an eight-inch blade put through your chest? Not so much.'
I shrugged again for effect, but Phillips was right. Charlie Bryant wasn't from the bad part of town. He wasn't even from the okay part. His corner of north London was affluent and safe. Crime in his road was swearing at old women. Despite that, I stuck to the argument: 'It's been a while since we were teenagers, DCI Phillips. It's not the good old days any more. You leave your back door open now, you come home to no house.'
Phillips studied me, eyes fixed, brain ticking over. He didn't look convinced, and I made a mental note to watch him. He was switched on and bright. That made him dangerous.
'So,' I said, 'if we're done, I'll be off.'
'Fair enough,' he replied, and held out his hand. I shook it. 'Remember, the Bryant murders are a police matter now, David. That means the police are dealing with it, and we don't need anyone getting in the way. And we absolutely, one hundred per cent, will not be sharing any information until we're ready to do so.'
I nodded. 'Sounds like a plan.'
'It does, doesn’t it?' he replied, then jabbed a thumb over his shoulder to the office. Davidson was sitting at a desk, watching us, an expression like a pitbull. You have a think about what we discussed. We're all after the same thing here. We all want to know why Charles Bryant was killed like that - and we all want to find Megan.'
Inside the office, I suddenly saw Healy appear, a fresh mug of coffee in his hands. He glanced towards us, momentarily stopped, then moved away and out of view.
Yeah, we all want to find her, I thought. Just some of us more than others.
* * *
Chapter Twenty-one
Phillips had someone drop me back at my car, which I'd left outside the Bryant house. A uniformed officer was still positioned outside the front gates, another one further up the drive, and lights were on in the living room. Crime-scene tape shone in the street light.
On the drive back home, I placed my phone in the hands-free and made a couple of calls. The first one was to Liz. It was Friday night, and we were supposed to be going to the new Italian restaurant her client owned in Act
on. I told her we were still on, but I'd got caught up at work and would have to re-book the table for eight-thirty. She said that was fine. As I killed the call and thought about what lay ahead, something bloomed in my stomach. Excitement. Or doubt. Or both.