by Tom Weaver
When I looked at Healy again, his mouth had flattened and his eyes seemed to project his thoughts: Leanne and the formalin, and whether he could bear to imagine the rest.
In the warehouse, someone started closing the rear doors of the lorry. The noise carried across the street towards us; a huge metal clang. We both turned and watched as the driver came around the front and disappeared inside the office door. Two minutes later, he re-emerged, got into the cab of his lorry and pulled out. The lorry was gone within thirty seconds.
Inside we could see people milling around. There was a wall of misty-coloured windows at the back of the warehouse. What little light the day could muster shone through them, turning everyone inside into silhouettes. I counted five people. Possibly six. The interior was hard to make out other than that, but it looked cavernous and empty.
'I hope you know what you're doing here,' Healy said, pressing his fingers against his chest again. 'You're out on bail, remember.'
In the rear-view mirror, a blue Nissan appeared at the top of the street, heading down towards us. 'I know,' I said, watching the car. It slowed up as it got to the warehouse, and bumped up on to the pavement outside. Healy heard the noise and turned to look.
'That's him,' he said.
'Drayton's son?'
'Yeah.'
'What do you know about him?'
Healy shrugged. 'Only what I've heard. I remember Phillips saying he thought the kid might be hiding something. But you know what Phillips is like.'
Drayton's son got out of the car. A couple of the people inside the warehouse waved to him, and then he disappeared through the office door.
'You ready?' I asked.
Healy looked at me. 'Let's do it.'
* * *
Chapter Forty-eight
The office was small and plain. There was a counter running most of the length of the room to our left, and a window behind it, looking out on to the warehouse. The place was a mess: invoices and paper pinned to the walls, a Page Three calendar, receipts, even photographs of the family. There were three worn seats, none matching, and a circular table in the waiting area. Everything smelt of food. Drayton's son was standing behind the counter, leaning on it as he wrote something down. He looked up as Healy approached. I could see his brain ticking over, trying to decide if he recognized him. I stood at the door the whole time.
'Luke Drayton?'
He studied Healy, then glanced at me. 'Do I know you?'
Healy fiddled around in the pocket of his jacket and got out his warrant card. When he laid it on the counter, he kept a couple of fingers pressed against the wallet. I could see what he was doing: the tips of both fingers were covering his name.
'We're with the Metropolitan Police.'
Drayton looked between us. 'Again?'
'We've got some more questions.'
'About what?'
'About your father.'
Drayton rolled his eyes. 'We told you everything we knew the first time you came. And the second. And the third. Do you want me to make something up — is that it?'
Healy took a step towards Drayton. Leaned on the counter.
Didn't say anything.
'Dad screwed us,' Drayton continued. 'He destroyed the reputation of this business. Everything I told you the other times you people came to see me, it still stands. I hope he rots in hell. I hope he never finds peace, wherever he is.'
Healy nodded. 'Sounds like you miss him.'
Drayton frowned, and shook his head.
I left them at it, let the door close behind me, then made my way around the side of the warehouse. At the back was a concrete yard surrounded by a five-foot wall topped with barbed wire. I peered over: a small forklift truck; two cars and a van; a few unmarked barrels; and a massive pile of cardboard boxes, covered with a rain- sheet. Two men were milling around the boxes. One was holding a clipboard, marking something off. A second was adding more boxes to the pile from a stack inside — presumably part of the delivery earlier.
I followed the path around the property and at the end was a stream, probably feeding in from the Royal Albert Dock. It ran the length of all seven warehouses and disappeared into a knot of trees at the end. I could see that the back wall of the yard was topped by three lines of barbed wire instead of one. No entrance. No way over unless you wanted to tear your skin to shreds.
Heading back up the path to my original position, I looked over the wall again. The only person left in the yard now was the guy with the clipboard. He was standing to the right of the pile of boxes, running a finger down a printed list. The boxes were all different heights and sizes, and stacked in a series of towers.
From inside the warehouse, the man who'd been carrying the boxes appeared again. He held a huge cube-shaped cardboard box in front of him, his arms barely stretching halfway along each side. He wobbled as he walked, slowly edging around the pile, careful not to knock anything. About three-quarters of the way along, side-on to where I was looking in, he reached down and placed the box in a space on the pile. The movement brought his weight forward, and the t— of his boot knocked against the bottom of one of the boxes underneath. It shifted. Turned slightly. Beneath the box, a line appeared, carved into the concrete floor.
The man crouched, placed a hand on either side of the box and then manoeuvred it back into position, over the line. Within a couple of seconds, it was in its original position and there was nothing visible on the concrete floor except tyre marks and dust.
We got back into the car. Healy kept his eyes on the warehouse.
'He knows something,' he said.
'What did he say?'
'Nothing.'
'So what makes you suspicious?'
'I'm not sure,' he said, and looked at me. 'Maybe you've just got me paranoid. But if he is weaving a story, he's a bloody good liar.'
The windows of the car creaked in the wind. 'Anything around the back?' he asked. I nodded. We need to come here again when it's dark.'
'Why?'
I could see through to the rear doors at the back of the warehouse, and the yard beyond. 'Because there's a trapdoor hidden out the back.'
* * *
Chapter Forty-nine
There was a coffee shop just off the East India Dock Road. Healy found a space a couple of streets away, the Dome — framed by grey skies and drizzle — across the water from us. We were about to go inside when, a little way up the road, I saw someone I recognized: Aron Crane. There was no Jill with him this time, and he was dressed in a suit.
I told Healy I'd see him inside. Aron looked deep in thought, his eyes fixed further out to where the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf needled the low-hanging cloud. Twenty feet short of the coffee shop, he spotted me.
He broke out into a smile, stopping. 'David.'
'How you doing, Aron?'
'I'm good.' We shook hands. 'What are you doing in this part of the world?'
'Just having coffee with a friend.' I nodded inside. Healy was leaning against the counter looking out, his eyes flicking between us. 'Well, more of an acquaintance, to be honest.'
Aron glanced at Healy. 'He looks angry.'
'He's smiling on the inside,' I said. Aron laughed. 'So, do you work close by?'
'Yeah. Well, kind of. For the next fortnight, anyway. I'm doing some consultation work for Citigroup and HSBC. It's probably why I've got this thousand-yard stare.'
'I remember you saying you worked in banking.'
'Don't hold it against me.'
I smiled. In the brief silence that followed, we both realized what was sitting between us. 'How's Jill?' I asked finally.
'She's good.' A pause. 'She said you called yesterday.'
There didn't seem to be any animosity in what he said, but as he looked at me, I could see what he was telling me: You upset her. 'I didn't mean to offend her.'
He nodded. 'I know.'
'It's just…' I stopped myself. It was a natural guard against giving out anything more than I had to on a case th
at was still active. But she would have already told him everything. They're close. He knows what I said to her. 'There were just some unexpected links between what happened to Frank and what I'm looking into at the moment. It seemed too convenient. I needed to ask Jill what she knew, if anything.'
He nodded again and ran a hand through his hair, as if he wasn't sure what to do with himself. 'You don't have to explain.'
'Are you seeing her tonight?'
'No.' He looked at his watch. 'I'm heading over to Canary Wharf to pick up my stuff and flying out to Paris at four for a meeting. It's a pain, and I feel really bad about it. It's obviously the support group tomorrow night, and I promised Jill I'd go, but I'm not going to be back until Wednesday.'
I'd forgotten all about it.
'Are you going?'
'I'd like to,' I said. I'd like a chance to talk to Jill, look her in the eyes and find out what she knows. 'But I think I might have to see how things pan out. I was going to ask you to apologize again for me if you were going.'
'I'm not, but I'll phone her later and tell her.'
I nodded my thanks.
'Okay, well, I better be going,' he said.
We shook hands again, and as he headed off down the street, I got the feeling that he was trying his best to remain neutral but finding it hard. I regretted offending Jill, but I didn't regret asking her the question.
Because something, somewhere, wasn't right.
* * *
Chapter Fifty
The coffee shop was small. Stools at the windows looked out at a row of two-storey terraced houses and a brand-new glass and chrome apartment block. I ordered a black coffee and a cheese and pastrami sandwich, Healy a bigger coffee and a beef and mustard roll, and we sat at the window looking out. It was nearly two and had started raining. We had at least three hours before it started to get dark. A lot of time to kill doing nothing.
'This must be home away from home for you,' he said.
I took a bite of the sandwich. 'I was a bit further down the road in Wapping.'
'Reckon you'd have given up journalism if your wife —' he stopped, glanced at me '— if it hadn't have happened?'
'Probably not.' I brought my coffee towards me. Outside, rain began spitting at the glass, and a little of the light fizzled out of the day. I nodded to the water running down the window. 'One reason I might have stuck it out on the paper was being able to get away from shitty weather like this on a regular basis.'
'Did you spend much time abroad?'
I took another bite of my sandwich. It tasted good. 'Yeah, quite a bit. Most of the time I took Derryn with me. She was a qualified nurse, but worked short-term contracts, so she'd come and stay with me, as long as I wasn't in the middle of a war zone. We spent a year and a half in the States, a year in South Africa, but most of the time it was a month here, a month there. She'd just fly out and join me and keep me sane.'
Both of us fell quiet. Within a couple of minutes, the drizzle had eased off again, leaving a fine mist in its place.
'What about you?'
'What about me?'
I looked at him. He was picking the sliced gherkins out of his roll. After a few seconds, he turned to me and shrugged. 'You already know about me.'
'Do I?'
He smiled. 'I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. You knew about Leanne, so I'm going to take a wild guess and say you know about my recent history.'
I didn't say anything.
He smiled again. 'I'll take that as a yes.'
'Take it however you want,' I replied, and drained some of my coffee. You tell me or you don't. It's up to you.'
Silence again.
I ate through my sandwich. Healy continued picking at his food and staring at his drink.
'I had this case,' he said eventually. He picked the last of the gherkins out of the roll and placed the bread back on top of the beef. 'Two girls killed down in New Cross. Twins. Eight-year-olds. Neighbour called the police after not hearing anything next door for a week. They'd been raped and strangled. Mother's cold in the next room. Stabbed in the chest. Father… fuck knows where he is. The girls had never met him. He'd never had any part in their lives. Even the mother didn't know his surname. He contributed one thing and one thing only to their lives — and that was nine months before they were born.'
He paused, emptied a packet of sugar into his coffee and started stirring it. 'So, obvious first suspect: the mother's dealer. Girls come home from school, find their mum and the dealer in the flat. Argument kicks off between the two adults. Dealer goes mental, stabs the mum, turns on the girls. Or, beats the shit out of the mum and forces her to watch him with the girls while she bleeds out, until she pays what she owes. Post-mortem put her death before the two girls.' He stopped, shrugged. 'Whether it's one or the other, they both made me feel fucking sick.'
He took a bite of his roll, wiped his mouth and shrugged again. We bring in the dealer, this weaselly piece of shit. He's probably responsible for half the misery in New Cross, but he's not the killer. So it's back to square one again. Forensics — nothing. They come back with fibres and prints, but there are zero matches. We ask around and no one's seen anything or knows anything. A week turns into two. Two into three. Three weeks into a murder investigation, and you start to get a bit twitchy. The doubts start creeping in. You think, "Have I missed something? What have I missed? What aren't I seeing?" And after that, you start going round and round in circles. Back to the scene. Back to the computer. Back to the forensics. Back to the statements. Suddenly, a month in, literally all you can think about is the fact that someone out there has walked away a free man after putting two innocent girls in the ground.'
Healy paused again. 'No one understands the debt you have to the people you stand over in these places. And when they're eight years old… Eight years old, and you can't find a trace of the arsehole who did these things to them anywhere in this worthless fucking city. No one understands what that feels like. Even some of the people I've worked with in the police. And if they don't get it, how the fuck are your family supposed to get it?'
I nodded but didn't say anything.
'It was about a month in when I found out she was seeing someone else,' he said, talking about his wife now. 'If I'd found out any other time, I would have been angry. I would have thrown some furniture around. Put my foot through a door. I know I've got a temper. It's who I am. I'm forty-six. I'm too old to change. But it wasn't just any time. I found out she was screwing around when I was up to my neck in photographs of two eight-year-old girls with injuries to every hole in their bodies. I had the media baying for blood, the chief super crawling up my arse…' He faded out, glanced at me. 'And worst of all, I had zero fucking suspects. No one. The debt I felt for those girls, I'd never had it as bad as that. So when Gemma told me, I just totally lost it.'
'We've all done things we regret.'
A smile without humour. 'You don't seem the wife- beating type.'
'We've all done things we regret,' I said again.
He turned to me. 'So what have you done?'
I looked at him. I've killed people. People who deserved it. People who would have taken my life if I hadn't taken theirs. But I've still killed. I'll still be judged the same as them. When I didn't respond, he stared out of the window. In front of him, his food was virtually untouched and his coffee had lost its warmth.
'You never really know anyone,' he said finally, 'even the ones you love. She thought she knew me, and I thought I knew her. But we didn't know each other at all.'
A couple of minutes passed. I watched the thumb and forefinger of his right hand rub together; he would have taken a cigarette now. After a while, he returned to the counter and ordered a fresh cup of coffee, then disappeared to the toilet. A few minutes later he came back, added some sugar to his coffee and took a long drink from it. I could see his mind turning over, and I wondered what he was thinking about. His wife. The night she told him about the other man. The moment he hit her. The
twins. Leanne.
'When do you accept someone is finally gone?' he said quietly.
I turned and studied him. The question surprised me, but I tried not to show it. I hadn't expected it from him. I hadn't expected emotion like that to exist so close to the surface.
'It's different for everyone. But there's no shame in hanging on. There's no shame in believing they might walk through the door at any moment.'
Healy didn't respond.