by Neil White
Jack hadn’t stayed long at the court. There wasn’t much going on, and he wasn’t in the mood to write up any of Hoyle’s speeches. Instead, Jack decided to return to the estate, to find out more for the feature Dolby had pencilled in for the weekend edition.
He was sorting out his voice recorder, deleting old interviews to clear some space, when the security van drove up to the front of his car, stopping inches short. Another car pulled up close behind.
Jack put down his dictaphone and watched as the two security guards got out of the van, their arms hanging away from their body. It wasn’t a friendly visit. They walked towards his car, and then stopped and folded their arms. Then Jack’s passenger door flew open and someone jumped into the seat. Don Roberts.
Jack was shocked. He looked back to the security guards, who were both grinning at him now. DR Security. Don Roberts. He should have guessed.
‘Let’s get this over with,’ Don said, turning towards him.
‘There is no this,’ Jack said, trying to hide the nerves in his voice.
‘Have you reconsidered?’ Don said.
‘About writing an appeal for information?’ Jack said, and then shook his head. ‘No, I haven’t.’ He tapped his finger nervously on the steering wheel.
‘Why won’t you help me find Jane’s killer?’
‘Because of what you will do when you catch him.’
‘Which is what?’
Jack looked at Don. He saw the clenched fists, the scar that ran from one corner of his mouth. But then he saw something else. It was confusion. In Don’s eyes, Jack could see that he didn’t know why his daughter had died, why something so awful had visited him. There was pain and grief and anger, and the determination to avenge his daughter’s death in the only way he knew how: through violence.
‘You would do exactly what any father would want to do,’ Jack said. ‘Kill the bastard who murdered your daughter. But I’m sorry, I can’t help you do that.’
Don looked down, and Jack wanted to look away when he saw the tremble to Don’s lip.
‘Would that be so wrong?’
‘Yes, in my world.’
Don clenched his jaw but didn’t respond.
‘Go to the police,’ Jack said.
Don shook his head.
‘You don’t want the police poking around your life,’ Jack said. ‘That’s your choice. But as bad as it sounds, you need to get the sympathy of the public to get the information you want, and so stand with the police, as a grieving parent.’
Don put his hands on his knees and clenched his fingers around the kneecaps, his knuckles turning white. Jack became aware of the silence. He could hear the gentle crackle of the branches on a silver birch. The soft creak of springs as Don moved in his seat. The rhythm of leather heels as an old man in a grey suit walked towards the shops.
Don’s shoulders slumped and the clench in his jaw softened. He looked at Jack, and there were tears in his eyes.
‘I’ve never had to do anything like this before,’ Don said, and for the first time Jack saw the anger slip away, leaving just grief, and it looked deep and raw.
Jack looked out of his windscreen at the two security men. They were looking away, oblivious to Don’s distress. Jack turned round to face him and said gently, ‘Tell me about Jane.’
Don didn’t wipe away the tears. They rolled down his cheeks as he took a deep breath to compose himself. ‘What can a father say about his daughter?’ he said. ‘Loyal, loving, beautiful.’
‘What about the last time you saw her?’
Don looked at Jack for a moment before answering. ‘It was just an ordinary night. Jane was going out, and so was I, just to my old local.’ He shook his head in disbelief. ‘Quiz night. How fucking mundane is that?’
Jack didn’t interrupt. He wanted Don to talk it out. He wasn’t planning on using it, but he wanted to find out more, so he could pass it on to Laura. Don may be unwilling to help the police, but Jack thought differently.
‘I was getting ready upstairs and so I never got chance to say goodbye,’ Don continued, ‘but why would I make a point of it anyway, because it was just a routine Saturday? I thought I would see her the next day.’ He paused, and then said, ‘She had a boyfriend, you know.’
‘What about him?’ Jack said, trying not to let on that he already knew.
‘I wasn’t supposed to know. Jane told me they’d finished.’
‘Why did she lie to you? Did you have a problem with him?’
‘He wasn’t good enough for her.’
‘So how did you know they were still together?’
‘Because people report back to me,’ Don said.
‘She was a grown woman. Why couldn’t she choose her own boyfriend?’
‘She could, but there is a thing called family.’
‘But you stopped her from seeing someone, and so she had to creep around, which made her walk alone that night.’ Jack watched carefully for a reaction.
Don’s fists went pale as he clenched them hard around his knees. ‘You make it sound like it was my fault.’
Jack shook his head. ‘You weren’t to know. But tell me this: why don’t you want the police involved? That is the question everyone will be asking. Why aren’t the parents at the news conference? Why wasn’t she reported missing earlier?’
‘Why should I be scared of the police?’ Don said. ‘You tell me, before you put it into print: what is it that I do?’
Jack realised then that he didn’t know too much about Don Roberts, apart from the rumours that he was the one to be feared.
Don nodded angrily at Jack when he didn’t respond. ‘So you don’t know much?’ he said, with a sneer. ‘Be careful what you print.’
‘How much have you read about Jane’s death?’ Jack said. ‘Some people have said some pretty cruel things on the internet.’
Don chewed his lip for a moment, and then he nodded slowly. ‘They’re sick,’ he said, ‘but let me say just one thing: say it to my face, because that’s the thing with the internet. Everyone’s a fucking hero when they’re at the keyboard, talking up the fight, but it hurts just the same whether it’s said to your face or from behind a screen. So if you print any of this, that’s my message to whoever they are: say it to my face.’
‘What have you found out so far?’ Jack said. He tried to make it sound innocent, a throwaway question, but he over-played it, and Don spotted it.
‘That is for me,’ Don said, and he leaned closer. ‘I know who you are, I asked around, and so I know who you live with. Do not underestimate me.’
Jack tried to meet his stare, but in his eyes he saw the look he recognised from the faces of the hardcore criminals who turned up in court sometimes. Not the thieves or the Saturday night fighters, but the career ones, the ones who played for high stakes. It was a look that told him that there were no limits.
They were interrupted by the security guards turning round to talk to someone who had grabbed their attention. It was a man with lank, greasy hair and stubble on his cheeks. He looked around furtively, his hands in his jacket pockets, his shoulders hunched. He was edgy, the paleness to his skin giving away the tell-tale signs of drug dependency. He was talking fast, making the security guards look towards Don, who opened the car door and stepped onto the pavement.
As Don slammed the car door shut, Jack wound his window down to listen to what was being said. He heard the word paedo and weirdo, and then part of an address.
Jack leaned out of his window. ‘I need to go. Could you move your van?’
Don gestured for one of the security guards to move it, and as he reversed Jack watched Don reach into his pocket and produce a roll of twenties. He peeled two off and gave them to the informant, but before he was able to scuttle away Don reached out and grabbed him by the back of the neck. There was some finger pointing, and Jack could hear the angry hiss of Don’s temper. The addict nodded quickly, and then Don pushed him, making him stumble to the floor. He picked himself up and walked of
f quickly.
He was around the corner as Jack pulled away. Don was in deep conversation with the two security guards as he went.
Jack caught up with the informant, who was walking quickly, looking back as he went. Jack pulled alongside and wound his window down.
‘I’ve just been talking to Don,’ Jack shouted at him. ‘Where does this weirdo live?’
He looked suspicious and kept on walking, but then Jack saw the memory of his car click into place. ‘Rockley Drive. Number 19,’ he said. ‘Are you going to sort him?’
‘Where’s that?’
‘At the top of the hill, on the right.’
‘And you think that the guy from number 19 did it?’
He shrugged. ‘He’s a fucking weirdo, is what I know. He’s always at his window when the school kids go past, looking through his nets.’
‘And that’s enough for you, is it?’
The visitor slowed down and licked his lips, his tongue flicking over the brown stumps of his teeth. ‘If it was your kid, you’d be bothered,’ he said. ‘It’s not right, that’s all, what happened to Jane.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘Don knows my name.’
Jack watched him go and then realised that he had another visit to make, if only to save a life.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The noise in his head was like a drum-roll as he entered Cleveleys, tense and fast, almost drowning out the shouts.
He had followed Rupert Barker all the way, always two cars between them. When Rupert stopped at a small grocer, he asked people on the street if they knew where Rupert lived. The police crest on his vehicle made someone give him up eventually.
He got out of the car and walked quickly to the doctor’s house, his lips moving in time with the words in his head. He went up the short path and then straight round the back, not looking up to see whether he had been seen or not. Once he was at the back of the house, he saw that the back door was wooden, with small panes of glass in the top half, so that he could see into the kitchen on the other side. He saw that there was an old-fashioned keyhole, and as he went to his knees, he smiled when he saw that the key was still in the door on the other side.
He took his jacket off and placed it over the small pane nearest the keyhole, and then he rammed it with his elbow. The cloth cushioned the noise, and he heard the soft tinkle of glass as it fell onto the floor on the other side. Once he’d reached in to turn the key, he stepped inside.
He closed the door behind him. He was in the kitchen. Then he stopped. There was a radio on. He moved slowly, trying to work out where it was playing. No one shouted out. There was just the soft crunch of broken glass under his feet as he moved through the kitchen. He got to the hall and saw there were two other doors going from the hallway. He looked inside the room nearest to him and saw what looked like Doctor Barker’s snug room, lined by books and photographs. The radio was on a bookcase by the window. He rushed over and clicked it off. All he heard then were the sounds of an empty house. The tick of the clock, the hum of the fridge, the soft pats of water from a dripping tap.
As he moved towards the hall, he paused by a photograph in a dusty silver frame. It was Doctor Barker from twenty years earlier. His hair wasn’t as grey, and he seemed to stand a bit taller. He felt some of the years slide away as he looked at the picture. He looked down to his hands, and they seemed smaller, thinner. He heard small cries, felt the movement between his fingers as tears of rage ran down his face.
He shook the thoughts away and walked quickly out of the room. He knew where to wait. If he stayed by the door, the doctor might be able to get away, or shout into the street. Once he was upstairs though, it would be hard for him to run.
He smiled as the stairs creaked under his shoes.
Jack looked up at Number 19, the house mentioned by Don’s informant. It was a dirty semi-detached house, the windows covered in dust and paint flaking from the door. The net curtains in the front window looked dirty and brown, and the grass in the small square garden was long and unkempt. Jack paused at the gate, worried that the informant might be right and that he would be helping a killer to escape, but something about the house told him that the occupant was not much more than the local oddball.
The curtain twitched as he approached the house, the occupant must have been looking out, and then the door opened before he reached it. A skeletal man looked Jack up and down. He looked like he was on life’s final lap, with grey stubble and purple bags under his eyes, dressed in a baggy grey T-shirt and hair that stood upright like he had just woken up. But the smoothness of his hands and the dart of his eyes told Jack that he wasn’t quite as worn out as he looked.
‘Are you from the council?’ he said. His voice was muffled, as if his tongue was getting in the way.
‘No, I’m a reporter,’ Jack said.
He looked up and down the street, his eyes scared now. ‘What do you want?’
Jack wanted to tell him to leave his house because his name had been given to Don Roberts, but he faltered. Instead, he said, ‘I’m just trying to get a reaction from the neighbourhood about the death of Jane Roberts. Did you know her?’
The man nodded but looked at Jack with suspicion. ‘I know Don,’ he said. ‘Everyone knows Don.’ Before Jack could respond, he said, ‘You haven’t been to any other houses.’
‘You seemed a good place to start.’
‘What do you want?’ the man said again, but he sounded angrier now.
Jack held out his hands in apology. ‘Look, I’m sorry, but your name has been passed to Don Roberts as a suspect.’
The man went pale. ‘What, for Jane’s death? Why would anyone do that?’ His voice was quieter than before.
‘Because it makes the informant look good in front of Don,’ Jack said. ‘I had to let you know.’
The man started to back into the doorway. ‘I’m not going,’ he said, some of his composure coming back. ‘I live here.’
‘I know that. You do what you want. Tell the police. I just wanted to warn you.’
The man pursed his lips and then nodded at Jack, before slamming the door.
Jack didn’t move straight away. He looked at the door, the numbers in white plastic, the bottom of the ‘9’ broken off, paint blistering around the edges.
Then he turned away. He had done what he could.
Rupert Barker walked into his house, feeling foolish after his trip to Blackley. He walked through to his kitchen and put the bag of groceries on the counter, the outcome of a detour to the local shop. He bent down to stroke his cat and then rummaged for the tin of sardines, a lunchtime treat for his sole companion. The cat purred softly as it rubbed his leg, and Rupert smiled. Life was normal again.
Once the cat was nose-deep in the fish, Rupert stepped away and felt the crunch of glass underfoot. He looked to the door. A pane of glass was missing. And the key was missing too. Then he realised that the house was too quiet. He’d left the radio playing when he went out, just to deter burglars. But there was just silence.
He looked around quickly, checking for any sign that things had been moved, the nerves prickling again, like they had ever since he’d rushed out of the police station. He had left for professional reasons, to protect his client’s confidentiality, but the feelings of disquiet hadn’t gone away.
He backed out of the kitchen and pushed at the door of the room at the back. He waited for a shout, but there was nothing. He could hear the creak of the weather vane on the church behind his house, flicking at the clouds as it twitched in the breeze. His finger tapped nervously against his lip. It was still too quiet.
His mind flashed back to the file he had read earlier in the day. Shane Grix. It had all come back to him as soon as he’d seen the name. The tilt of the head, the flit of his eyes, his hands always still on his knees, quiet, withdrawn. He remembered the photographs Shane’s mother had brought in. He never seemed to be joining in. His friends would be joking, grinning, pushing and pulling at each
other, but Shane always seemed detached, stood to one side, more of a half-smile on his lips.
No, it wasn’t a half-smile. It was a knowing smile, an ‘if only you knew’ sneer, a deep enjoyment of his secrets. Rupert remembered the struggle to get him to open up, and Rupert felt that he never really had. Shane Grix disclosed what he wanted to disclose, nothing more, and so Rupert could only advise his parents to try and be open with him, to discuss their problems with him, to encourage him to share his thoughts with them.
The sessions had stopped too soon. Shane wasn’t from a problem family, and so there was no need to involve the authorities. They had been private consultations sought by worried parents. He had given them advice until they couldn’t afford it anymore.
He whirled around as he thought he heard something, like faint knocks. He looked through the window, but all he saw was the bamboo as it swished against the fence. Was it the wind, or had it been disturbed?
He stepped back, tried to sink into the shadows of his living room. There was movement outside, he was sure of it. He thought about dialling 999, but he wanted to check that the house was clear first.
But the nerves were making him feel nauseous. His heart seemed to beat too fast, making him gulp down air, his stomach turning.
There was another noise. It was from upstairs. Just a bang, like something had been knocked over. Perhaps it was his cat, but it had been too heavy for that. He peered round the corner into the kitchen. His cat was still eating.
Rupert backed up against the wall. Someone was inside the house, he was sure of that. He thought about the telephone in the hall. He knew he should call the police, but he didn’t want to. Not yet anyway. He worried about the confidences he might end up breaking.
His eyes shot to the ceiling again. There was another noise. The creak of a floorboard. Or was it a door?
Rupert stepped away from the wall and moved slowly towards the door that led back into the hallway, the stairs just on the other side. He tried to move silently, so that he could back away quickly if he saw real danger, make a call and get the police there.