Before I Say I Do

by Vicki Bradley

  Loxton took out her mobile.

  Chapter 28

  Jenny Hughes

  Monday 24 July 2000

  The sunlight filtered through the woods, a fairy den of colours and light. Jonny was bored. Rachel was still digging about looking for clues. She thought it was for real, that she would find some clue that would solve the murders, and she kept bringing us bits of rubbish that she’d found.

  We couldn’t get a moment alone.

  Now she was crawling through the bracken, still searching. I didn’t even think there’d been a murder; I was sure that all the girls had been found safe and well, if not a bit scared. My mum had told me the story to keep me out of the woods.

  Jonny looked through the trees towards home. ‘This is lame. I’m going to the shops. Someone’s bound to be there.’

  My heart sank. ‘Sorry. I didn’t want to bring Rachel. My parents just asked last minute.’

  ‘She’s such a baby,’ he said.

  I looked down at my feet, not daring to meet his eye. ‘Sometimes I wish I could lose her for ever.’ A big part of me meant it.

  ‘Great idea!’ Jonny’s eyes lit up. ‘We could lose her for a little bit. It’d be funny. She’s such a spoilt little brat.’

  I nodded. ‘Okay. Let’s teach her a lesson.’

  ‘How?’ Jonny asked.

  My mind was racing.‘Why don’t we play hide-and-seek. Let her win, then we run away as far as we can, and wait until she loses it.’

  ‘Then she’ll come running towards home and we’ll leap out on her.’ Jonny’s face broke into a grin. ‘It’ll be hilarious.’

  I nodded excitedly as my heart skipped a beat. Jonny announced the game and Rachel’s head popped out of the fern.

  ‘I love hide-and-seek.’ She ran over clapping her hands. Jonny started as It and Rachel and I hid. I stood behind a tree, making sure to leave my arm sticking out. Rachel ran straight back to the fern where she’d come from.

  Jonny made the pretence of counting and then strolled over to me. I tried not to giggle too loudly as he shouted, ‘Found you!’

  I pointed to where Rachel was crouched in the ferns and Jonny tagged her. She stood up and saw me already caught.

  ‘I win! I win!’ She danced about.

  ‘Yes, Rachel, you win.’ I smiled despite myself. ‘Now are you going to count to twenty while we hide?’

  She nodded excitedly.

  ‘Okay then,’ I said. ‘Let’s see if you can break Jonny’s record. No peeking.’

  I made her turn away and face the brook. She began to count, and we moved away from her. When we were out of earshot, we ran as fast as we could. After a few minutes of running we stopped and fell about, Jonny laughing until tears trickled down his cheeks.

  ‘She totally fell for that.’ He grinned at me.

  ‘She’ll come running this way any minute, and when she does . . .’ I lunged at him and he laughed. Even Rachel would find it funny in the end. We sat down and Jonny offered me a cigarette out of his pocket.

  ‘Want one?’

  ‘Sure.’ I took the cigarette and held it in my hand. I’d only smoked a couple of times, but I tried to copy the stars in the films. ‘You got a light?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He pulled out a postbox-red lighter; it looked so grown-up.

  ‘Suck on it when I light it.’ He came nearer to me. The flame jumped into life and hovered in the air. I sucked hard and the end glowed. I started to cough and splutter; my throat was dry and felt burnt.

  Jonny laughed. ‘You’ll get the hang of it.’

  I shook my head, unable to speak. My face grew hot and I knew I’d be bright red.

  ‘You must get fed up having to look after Rachel all the time.’

  ‘Yeah, she’s a real drag.’ I felt bad as I said it, but Jonny was looking at me intently. At last it was just him and me. ‘I don’t know why mum couldn’t look after her, it’s not my job.’

  ‘I thought your boring mate was going to take her?’

  ‘Kayleigh? I asked her to, but she wouldn’t.’ I wished she had.

  ‘Your mate doesn’t like me much, does she?’

  ‘She just doesn’t like boys. It’s like she never left primary school.’ I rolled my eyes at him.

  He laughed and then took another drag of the cigarette. ‘Have you ever made out properly with anyone before?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I lied. I thought we’d been making out properly when we kissed behind the bike shed. ‘You?’

  ‘Plenty of times. I had my first girlfriend in the first year. She was lame though; wouldn’t do anything.’

  ‘Like what?’ I asked.

  ‘She wouldn’t let me touch her. How can you be going out if you don’t touch each other? You might as well be friends.’

  ‘Yeah, I know what you mean.’ Everything I knew, I’d read from my Just Seventeen magazines.

  I felt sweaty and hot as Jonny inched closer to me. I could smell his Lynx aftershave. He put his arm round my waist.

  ‘You’re pretty.’ He turned me around to face him.

  ‘Really?’ I’d been desperate for this moment for so long, and now he was finally going to ask me out. I’d fancied him for ages. He was the year above. It had seemed impossible.

  ‘Yep,’ he said. He brushed my hair with his hand. ‘And you’re blonde.’ He leaned forward and put his lips to mine, and a tingling travelled through my body. But then his hand went from my hair and down to my chest, cupping one of my boobs. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t like it.

  His other hand trailed the waistband of my shorts and then started moving downwards.

  I pulled away from him, but he leaned forward, following me. I tried to push him off, but his grip on my boob became harder, his kiss fierce. He pushed himself into me. I felt a bulge down there. For a moment, fear made me freeze, and then it turned to anger. I pushed him away with both hands and he fell backwards, confusion spread across his face.

  ‘What the fuck?’ He panted. ‘You said you liked me?’

  ‘I do.’ I felt stupid. My cheeks were burning with shame. I had said I liked him and now he looked hurt. He took a step towards me. ‘What’s the problem, then?’

  ‘I just don’t want to.’ I put my hands up as if to stop him. I didn’t want him touching me again. It made my stomach turn.

  ‘Cocktease.’ He shook his head at me, disgust curling his lip upwards. ‘You’ve got me hard now. You can’t just do that.’

  ‘I’m not some slag,’ I said.

  ‘Didn’t seem that way a minute ago.’ A nasty smirk played across his lips. ‘Everyone at school will think you’re a slag when I tell them that we shagged.’

  My heart sank. If Mum and Dad heard about this, they’d kill me.

  ‘Why don’t you just give me head?’ His hand moved to his jeans buttons and he began to undo them. ‘I won’t tell anyone.’

  I shook my head and stepped back. I didn’t want to do that. I’d read about that in magazines and that was for when you were older and in proper relationships. Not for now. ‘I don’t want to.’

  ‘My last girlfriend didn’t make all this fuss.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘God, you’re just like all the rest of them. All talk and then nothing.’

  I’d never said I was going to do that, I thought.

  He moved towards me, a dark look on his face. A need. Panic made me want to run. He tried to grab me, and I scratched at his face to stop him, catching his cheek. He looked shocked as the blood trickled from a fresh cut.

  The purple stone in my ring had caught him.

  He touched his face and stared at the bright red blood on his fingertips. Blood kept dripping down his face.

  He shook his head, his eyes wide. The cut looked like it stung. He didn’t look so big now, more like a little boy who’d grazed his knee.

  ‘You’re mental.’ He stepped back and then turned and ran.

  For a moment I stood there, my own blood roaring in my ears. I knew he wouldn’t say a word about it to anyone. He’d
be too embarrassed by being hurt by a girl.

  As I stood there panting, the fear I’d felt moments before turned into anger and something else. My fingertips were sore where they’d clawed his face and his blood was under my nails. He’d tried to make me do it, but I’d shown him. It felt good. I felt strong. He’d deserved it.

  I felt free in the woods. Alive. I was alone. No mum and dad to tell me what to do. No friends to make me worry whether they liked me or not. No Jonny pressuring me.

  No one but me.

  I groaned out loud as I suddenly remembered Rachel, tipping my head back and looking up at the black branches high above me, which were stirred by the summer breeze. The sky was darkening. She would be freaking out, probably still by the willow, crying. She hated being left on her own. She hadn’t even tried to find us. She was so useless.

  When she was hysterical, she was hard work. Impossible to calm down. She’d tell Mum that I’d brought her into the wood and left her on her own while I went off with a boy. She’d do it just to get me in the shit.

  ‘Rachel!’ I called. ‘Where are you?’

  Maybe I could scare her into keeping her mouth shut too.

  Chapter 29

  Alana Loxton

  Thursday

  Loxton rubbed her face with her hands, trying to shift the tiredness. It was 4.30pm, but it felt so much later. The case had taken it out of her, but there was no time to stop.

  ‘Here’s your full intelligence package you requested on Jonathan Cane.’ Kanwar barely looked at her as he handed her the file, before rushing off to answer a phone.

  Loxton took the package and leafed through it.

  ‘Jonathan Patrick Cane,’ she read out. ‘Also goes by “Jon” and “Jonny”. Cane’s on a life licence for murder, as we already know. He maintained his innocence in prison, which delayed his release for a few years because he refused to show any remorse. He eventually told the Parole Board he was sorry for his part in the murder and promised that he was a new man. He’s got recent form. Possession of cocaine in the past year. He did well not to get recalled back to prison.’

  ‘Let’s not forget the prisons are full to the bursting,’ Kowalski said. ‘Does it say any more about the murder?’ ‘Murder of a child in 2000,’ Loxton read out. She stared at the words. They still shocked her. Child murderers were rare, despite the news reporting them as if there was one living on every corner.

  ‘That was a long time ago,’ Kowalski said. ‘How old would he have been?’

  Loxton checked the DOB at the front and quickly did the maths. ‘Fifteen,’ she said. ‘Just a kid himself.’

  ‘He had a recent conviction for selling drugs and the current intel is that he was still involved in supply. There must be tonnes of people in his current life who wanted him dead.’

  She nodded as she glanced at the summary of the murder in 2000: Defendant killed child in Ashurst Wood using a rock. So much horror contained in one sentence. What had made Cane kill a child? From that moment, his life had been mapped out in front of him. All Loxton felt was sadness. ‘I’ll get the murder case file sent to us.’

  Kowalski looked surprised.‘That can’t be relevant now. This will be to do with drugs. He might even be involved in the insider trading. Perhaps when Rowthorn went AWOL, Cane’s boss decided to tie up some loose ends.’

  ‘Maybe . . .’ It seemed unlikely a crime committed so long ago could be the motive for Cane’s death, but in a murder like that, of a child, there would be a lot of hate. And people could be patient. ‘I still want to check. Curious, I guess.’

  ‘The post-mortem results should be in by tomorrow afternoon. You never know, it still might have been just an overdose.’

  ‘Or perhaps we’ll find Rowthorn’s DNA at the crime scene,’ Loxton countered. ‘When will the forensics be back for that?’

  ‘It could take a couple of days,’ Kowalski said.

  She focused on her monitor and saw that an email had arrived from Met Intel with attachments of everything they’d found on Robert McGregor.

  Loxton read his missing persons report. McGregor was homeless. He’d failed to turn up for a rehousing appointment, which meant he’d lost his chance at a home. He was normally pretty reliable, so the homeless charity working with him had reported him missing three days ago.

  McGregor also had over a hundred convictions. Mostly shoplifting, pickpocketing, street drinking and petty assaults. Nothing exceptional.

  ‘Let’s look at the recent police stops of McGregor,’ Kowalski suggested, leaning across her and tapping at the unopened email Patel had sent. His boundless energy amazed her; he didn’t seem tired at all.

  ‘He got stopped twenty times by police on the Southbank last month alone,’ she read aloud. Most of them were for suspected possession of drugs and begging. That didn’t surprise her. The homeless population had exploded in the past few years. Where in the past you’d see a couple of older men at most, now she saw dozens of young men and women already so hopelessly lost.

  ‘Lots of tourists in the day to beg from,’ he said. ‘And in the evening, drunk people who make easy targets.’

  Something began to irritate her. ‘Rowthorn could have gone to the Southbank for a drink and got more than he bargained for,’ she said.

  ‘It’s possible,’ Kowalski agreed. ‘Or maybe McGregor got more than he bargained for and Rowthorn had to disappear.’

  ‘You think Rowthorn put his own watch on McGregor’s wrist to try to trick us?’ Loxton tried to keep the disbelief out of her voice. It was important to always keep an open mind.

  ‘Stranger things have happened.’ Kowalski shrugged. ‘There’s lots of CCTV there; we should go and check it now while we’ve got time and see if Rowthorn shows up on any of it.’

  She pulled up a map of the Southbank on her phone. It was the location that was playing on her mind. That particular part of the Southbank. She had a feeling she’d looked at it recently.

  ‘Ready to go?’ Kowalski asked. ‘Might as well check this lead out while we wait for Cane’s post-mortem results, forensics and the CCTV from the nightclub.’

  ‘Give me a minute.’

  ‘I know where the Southbank is,’ Kowalski said, pointing to the map. ‘I don’t need that.’

  ‘It’s the location,’ she said. ‘There’s something about it.’ Where had she seen it? A couple of the roads stood out, and she couldn’t take her eyes off it.

  ‘You’re thinking of a previous job. I get that all the time.’

  ‘No, it’s to do with this case.’ The glare from her phone’s screen was starting to hurt her eyes. She zoomed further out. It was just there, in the corner of her mind.

  *

  The Southbank was busy at 5pm. Tourists took pictures and office workers surged towards the pubs. Kowalski was noting the CCTV camera positions. Loxton couldn’t focus. She was flicking through her notes. The Southbank had come up before. She saw a homeless woman huddled in a blanket by a cash machine on the wall. Loxton crouched next to her.

  ‘Got any change?’ The woman’s eye bored into Loxton’s. Her face was grubby and pock-marked, the skin sagging with premature age.

  Loxton dug into her pocket and pulled out a tenner. She gave it to the woman and her eyes lit up.

  ‘Have you seen this man?’ Loxton showed the woman a picture of Robert McGregor on her mobile.

  ‘Why do you want to know?’ The woman scowled at her, the light diminishing, fear replacing it.

  ‘I’m his daughter. I just wanted to speak to him.’

  The woman pressed her lips together until Loxton pulled out a twenty.

  ‘He puts his head down a few roads back from here, under the railway bridge at Redcross Way.’ She pointed down the road. ‘I used to sleep down there, but it got too crowded. I haven’t seen him around for a few days, though.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Loxton watched the woman gather up her blanket and scurry off.

  Loxton checked the bridge on the map on her phone and frowned. The
thing that had been niggling her was right in front of her eyes. Why hadn’t she seen it before? She looked up at Kowalski. ‘I know why this location is important.’

  ‘What?’ Kowalski said.

  ‘It’s here.’ She pointed at the map. ‘The research on Emily Hart puts her living two minutes’ walk in that direction, which is seconds from where McGregor was sleeping under the railway bridge.’

  ‘Emily Hart?’ Kowalski asked.

  ‘The secretary from the bank.’

  ‘And?’ He shrugged. ‘She’s got to live somewhere.’

  ‘The secretary who seemed to know more about Mark’s financial situation than his own fiancée did. If Rowthorn had come across McGregor here, don’t you think it’s a bit of a coincidence that he disappears within walking distance of her place?’

  Kowalski raised his eyebrows at her, clearly thinking it was a stretch.

  ‘She’s just down here, off Redcross Way.’ Loxton dodged through the crowd to head towards the side road. ‘Maybe Rowthorn met up with Hart after he left Steele. What if that’s what he had to sort out?’

  ‘She’ll still be at work,’ Kowalski said.

  Loxton hoped he would follow her anyway. She turned down the side road and into the small estate. After a call to Patel, she had Emily’s flat number: fifty-five. Emily lived in a new-build block still shiny and unscathed.

  ‘I’ll do the talking,’ Loxton said. ‘A woman-to-woman chat.’

  ‘And I’ll try to be invisible.’ Kowalski shook his head at her, and she smiled back at his large frame.

  ‘Do your best.’ She punched in the number on the intercom.

  ‘Hello?’ It was a woman’s voice. She sounded like she’d been crying.

  ‘Hello, it’s DC Loxton. Miss Hart, I spoke to you the other day about Mark Rowthorn.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Can we come up?’ she asked.

  There was silence. Loxton wondered if the intercom was broken.

  ‘Yes . . . yes, but I’m a bit under the weather.’ There was a click as the door released. They climbed the stairs, reaching the third floor. Hart’s flat was down a long, cream corridor lined with bright, white circular lights in the walls. It must be like living in a spaceship.