Snakes and Ladders

by Adam Croft

  ‘I’ve got to be honest with you,’ the mother said. ‘We actually found it a couple of days ago, and we knew straight away there wouldn’t be an innocent explanation. But we just couldn’t bring ourselves to… you know.’

  ‘Of course,’ Jack said. ‘Your instinct is to protect your child. I get that.’

  ‘To an extent. I mean, there are limits. As we’re now realising. It’s just such a horrible situation. We feel guilty towards you for not telling you earlier, guilty towards Connor for telling you at all, horrible at the thought it might reveal something that gets him in trouble, even worse at the thought that a family might not get closure on what happened to their loved one if we kept quiet. It’s just… There’s no pleasant way out of this.’

  ‘No. No, you’ve done the right thing. Is this it here?’ Jack asked, pointing to the small key Connor’s dad was dangling off his forefinger.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘I found it in the shed. I’ve got a bunch of old keys hanging on a nail just inside the door. One for the garage, a spare one for the house. Probably about four or five old houses, in fact. My parents’ house. They’ve been dead fifteen years. Padlocks. Bike locks. Windows. Christ knows what most of them are. Keys just accumulate. I might not know what they’re for half the time, but I damn well know what’s there, and this one stood out to me like a sore thumb.’

  ‘To be fair, it is bright yellow.’

  ‘That too. I reckon it’s for that storage place down on the Harrington Road.’

  ‘Well, it does have their logo on it.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘Have you called them? Or been down there?’

  Connor’s father shook his head. ‘No. To be honest, we were more worried about what we might find.’

  ‘And have you ever used this storage company before?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Any other ideas as to how the key might’ve got there?’

  ‘No. None at all. The only people who have access is the two of us and Connor. It has to be something bad, doesn’t it? Why else would he hire a storage unit without saying anything? It’s obviously something he couldn’t hide around the house, or which he thought you might come looking for. I mean, he couldn’t even risk leaving the key in the house, could he? Bloody good hiding place, to be fair, but he didn’t reckon on me having as keen an eye as I have.’

  ‘Or finally going out to tidy the shed,’ his wife added.

  ‘And Connor never mentioned anything about a storage unit to you?’ Jack asked.

  ‘No. Nothing.’

  ‘Okay. Well, you’ve done the right thing. We’ll speak to the company. We’ll double check who the unit is registered to, and if there’s anything in there of any use, we’ll make sure you’re the first to know.’

  Connor’s parents nodded and thanked him, before heading towards the exit. Jack looked down at the key in his hand, and wondered if perhaps it held an even more symbolic significance than he thought.

  41

  It would have been perfectly reasonable and normal for him to have sent someone else to check out the storage unit, but Jack was keen to see it for himself. He’d come far enough in this case, and wanted to stay as hands-on as possible.

  He and Wendy parked up in the bays outside, and Jack wondered if this was the same unit where Chrissie had moved her furniture and old belongings when she moved in permanently with him.

  Although getting to the car park had been easy enough, the building itself looked more like Fort Knox, with a sliding door to the reception area the only way in. Beyond that, keypad entry was required to access the storage areas themselves.

  Jack and Wendy headed to the reception area, where they were greeted by a middle-aged woman in a bright yellow body warmer.

  ‘Hello, can I help?’ she said, smiling.

  Jack and Wendy showed her their police ID cards. ‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Jack Culverhouse, and this is my colleague Detective Sergeant Wendy Knight. We found a key during a recent search, which we think belongs to one of your units. We were wondering if we might be able to take a look, please.’

  ‘Ah. I’m afraid that’s beyond my powers. Only the registered person on record can access the unit, unless you’ve got a warrant to search it.’

  Jack sighed. ‘Listen, we can get a warrant. That’s not an issue. But it’s not something that can be done instantly. It takes time, and we don’t have time. Our suspect’s custody clock is running down fast, and we think there could be crucial evidence in that unit. If we don’t get in, he gets out and he’s left roaming the streets.’

  ‘I understand your problem. I really do. But I can’t go against company policy. Not unless we know there’s something illegal in there, or you have a warrant to search the unit.’

  Jack leaned in slightly. ‘I want to tell you something. Something I shouldn’t tell you. Something that puts my job on the line, but which I think would help. And I hope you’ll be able to do the same for me in return. The guy we’re talking about? He’s in for murder. We think he killed a young lad, barely out of college, who had his whole life ahead of him. If we don’t get inside that unit and find what we’re looking for, he’ll be walking the streets within hours.’

  The woman swallowed and looked down for a moment, before raising her eyes to meet Jack’s again. ‘Is this the body they found in the woods?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that.’

  ‘I remember reading about it. My son’s the same age. Can I see the key?’

  Jack handed it to her. She looked at it, then typed the serial number into her computer.

  ‘Okay. It’s a ten square footer. Our smallest type of unit. I hope you’re not expecting to find a missing yacht.’

  ‘I’ll be honest, I don’t know what we’re expecting to find. Can you tell us who the unit’s registered to?’

  ‘A Mr Connor French.’

  ‘Okay. What do people need to bring to hire a unit, in terms of proof of ID?’

  ‘A driving licence usually does the trick, plus proof of address. Mobile phone bill, council tax, something like that. Or a passport and driving licence if they don’t have those.’

  ‘If they were too young to have council tax bills, for example?’

  ‘Exactly that.’

  ‘Okay. Can we see the unit please?’

  ‘Follow me,’ the woman said quietly, gesturing for them to walk behind the reception desk and through the office.

  They made their way through the corridors towards the area that contained the storage units. When they eventually reached the unit, the woman put the key into the lock and turned it. They listened as it clicked open, and the metal door yielded.

  As the door opened, it revealed a single, solitary carrier bag on the floor.

  ‘Is that what you were expecting to find?’ the woman asked.

  Jack sniffed the air. ‘Well it’s not a forgotten egg and cress sandwich, which is a relief.’ He bent down and peeled the carrier bag back, exposing its contents. It was immediately clear what they were looking at. Cash. A lot of it.

  42

  Back in the incident room, Jack briefed the team on what they’d found.

  ‘Twenty-five grand, by the looks of things. In mostly new notes. We’ve got officers going through them at the moment, but from first glance it looks like a lot of them have their serial numbers in sequential order. That tells me they’ve been drawn straight out of the bank and taken there.’

  ‘Or nicked from the bank,’ Steve said, chuckling to himself.

  ‘I think we’d probably have been made aware if there’d been a bank raid, Steve. Now, this doesn’t look like drug money to me. There’s too much, and the notes are all crisp and in sequence. That’s not how it’s done. No-one draws a couple of grand in fresh notes out of the bank and spends it on weed. You’d need a fucking JCB to get it home, for a start. This looks to me like blood money.’

  ‘What, you think Connor was paid to kill Matthew?’ Ryan Mackenzie asked.

  ‘That’s
where my mind went, yes. Some of the notes are old and used, but most of them aren’t. Early indications are that there’re twelve different series of decent sizes, so we’re potentially looking at at least twelve original sets of cash, plus all the loose stuff that’s in there as well. We’re in the process of getting in contact with the banks to see if any of them can confirm the serial numbers have passed through their hands recently, or been given out by them.’

  ‘Back to the waiting game then, eh?’

  Jack sighed. ‘Yep. Looks like it.’

  * * *

  A couple of minutes later, Jack sat down in his office and massaged his temples. Things seemed to be getting close to a conclusion; there was a definite tension in the air, not to mention the sides of his head.

  He felt confident the banks would come back with something. It was rare for a paper trail not to lead to the guilty party in one way or another. The only exceptions were when sophisticated international gangs were involved, but that could hardly apply to Matthew Hulford peddling weed in Mildenheath. Either way, all they could do now was wait for the call.

  As he considered this, he heard the familiar ping of an email landing in his inbox. He took his phone out of his pocket and looked at the notification. It was from an email address he didn’t recognise, but that wasn’t what concerned him; it was the subject line that stood out most.

  * * *

  Are you watching, Jack?

  * * *

  He opened the email, which consisted simply of a Vimeo link a note:

  * * *

  Password: mildenheath

  * * *

  He was aware of Vimeo — a similar sort of site to YouTube, as far as he could work out — but he wasn’t going to risk clicking any links. He jotted the website address down on a piece of paper, then opened his phone’s web browser and typed in the address manually, to make sure he was actually going to Vimeo and not elsewhere.

  The password box appeared, and he entered the word mildenheath, all in lower case as the email had styled it. Then a video appeared and started to play.

  Jack turned his phone on its side to get a full-screen view, and turned the volume up. It appeared to be a restaurant scene, and the only noise was that of diners talking, cutlery clanging and the occasional door opening and closing.

  It looked as though it’d been filmed on someone’s mobile phone or portable camera. The shot was steady — perhaps the camera had been propped up against a salt cellar or something — and the picture quality was decent, although the sound suffered.

  He didn’t recognise the restaurant; it was far too swanky and pretentious for him. He was fairly sure it wasn’t in Mildenheath, so he had no idea why he’d been sent the video or why the password to view it was mildenheath. But as the camera closed in on one particular pair of diners a few tables away, Jack realised he recognised them both.

  It took him a moment to realise what was happening. They were out of context. He’d never seen them together before. And he hadn’t seen her in years. She looked different. Better.

  A bolt shot through him as his consciousness recognised what he was watching: Gary McCann and Helen, sitting at the same table.

  It was an odd way for him to try and convince her she needed to disappear, but Jack immediately realised it was preferable to him killing her. Or was he just trying to win her trust first? Maybe he was showing her how much money and influence he had, before handing her a cheque and telling her to piss off. Jack tried to run through as many feasible possibilities as he could, but he quickly realised why. It didn’t seem right. The body language was all wrong. They seemed… familiar.

  Jack narrowed his eyes as his brain tried to compute what he was seeing, but within seconds there was no doubting it. He watched as McCann and Helen leaned in towards each other and held a long kiss. Moments later, Helen smiled and went back to her food. McCann, though, slowly turned his head towards the camera, giving his trademark smile and wink, especially for Jack.

  43

  Jack sat in near-silence, listening to the throbbing of blood in his eardrums. What the fuck was McCann playing at? He could only assume — had to assume — this was his way of currying favour with Helen and winning her trust, all while having a little dig at Jack. McCann wanted him to rise to it, but Jack knew he couldn’t.

  There was no reason for the video. Simply finding out a few days later that Helen was gone and wouldn’t be coming back would be more than good enough for him. He didn’t need ‘progress updates’ or evidence. He knew — thought — that if nothing else, McCann was good for his word. So why had he sent him this, if not to tease him and wind him up?

  He felt annoyed, too, that it’d worked. He shouldn’t give a shit if Helen was kissing someone else. They were ancient history. Yet it bothered him. And what bothered him most was who she was kissing.

  Before he could collect his thoughts and try to force himself to think calmly, clearly and rationally, there was a knock at his office door.

  ‘What?’ he barked.

  Wendy opened the door and stepped inside. ‘Good news,’ she said. ‘We’ve heard back from two of the banks already. They’ve confirmed that many of the banknote serial numbers we sent them were given out by them in cash withdrawals over the last couple of months. All in-branch withdrawals, ranging from one thousand to five thousand pounds at a time.’

  ‘Right. Okay. So, uh, what else do we know?’

  ‘Well, we know who withdrew those amounts. It was the same person each time. Both banks have confirmed that independently. And it strengthens the case against Connor French. It proves who gave twenty-five grand in cash to him.’

  Jack looked at Wendy, trying to process the words she was saying. ‘What? Who?’

  ‘Clive Blake. Jenny’s dad.’

  ‘He was the one who withdrew the cash?’

  ‘Yep. All the notes they can trace and confirm were given out by them, he withdrew. Why did he pay Connor French twenty-five grand in cash, using withdrawals he’d tried to keep under the radar?’

  Jack nodded slowly as the pieces fell into place. ‘Because he needed to buy his silence.’

  ‘Exactly. His daughter was going out with a drug dealer. She was besotted with him. Talking about starting a life together. There was no way she was going to leave Matthew. So Matthew had to leave her.’

  Jack tried to focus, tried to ignore what he’d just seen on that video. ‘He killed Matthew to protect his daughter.’

  ‘I reckon so. Are you happy for us to send officers round to arrest him?’

  ‘Uh. Yeah. Yeah, makes sense. Let’s do it.’

  ‘Alright. I’ll put the call out. In the meantime, we should call a briefing. Update everyone. Put a strategy together for Clive Blake’s interview. We need to interview Connor, too. There’s a lifeline for him here if he helps us. He could avoid a murder charge if he confirms Clive paid him off to keep him quiet. A smart brief could even claim coercion.’

  ‘Yeah. Yeah. Good idea.’

  Wendy looked at him. ‘Shall I tell the others there’ll be a briefing in, say, half an hour?’

  Jack cleared his throat and stood up. ‘Uh, no. No, let’s make it a bit later. I’ve got to pop out.’

  ‘Okay. What time?’

  ‘I’ll let you know,’ he said, heading for the door. ‘There’s something I need to do first.’

  44

  Jack was running on pure adrenaline as he drove, a thousand thoughts flooding through his mind at once. A small voice told him he’d acted on impulse too often recently and that he should stop and think for a moment, but it was drowned out by the sheer rage and desperation taking over his body and mind.

  He pulled up at the gates of Gary McCann’s house and held his hand down on the horn. A few seconds later, the gate whirred and started to open.

  Jack took his hand off the horn, waited for the gates to open wider, then accelerated up the driveway, crunching to a halt on the gravel outside the house. He got out of the car and marched over to th
e front door, watching it open just as Jack reached the steps. McCann’s head was cocked to one side as he spoke.

  ‘Everything alright, Detective Inspector? You look a little flustered.’

  Jack ignored McCann’s trademark and deliberate barb in mistaking his rank, and instead asked his own question. ‘What the fuck are you playing at, McCann?’

  ‘I was having a rather pleasant afternoon with a cup of tea and a good book, if you must know. It doesn’t look as though your day’s been quite as relaxing, though. Is something the matter?’

  ‘You know damn well what’s the matter, Gary. What the fuck was that video all about, eh? You think you can wind me up with shit like that?’

  ‘Well it seems to have done the trick, don’t you think?’

  Jack made to launch himself at McCann, but managed to stop himself.

  ‘Oh come on now, Jack. That’s a bit beneath you, isn’t it? It’s certainly beneath me. I’m not about to fight you on my doorstep.’

  ‘Explain yourself,’ Jack said. ‘What’s it all about?’

  McCann sighed. ‘It’s called gaining trust.’

  ‘Whose?’

  ‘Hers. You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar, believe me. She wasn’t difficult to find. So I thought I’d try to impress, win her round, then we can talk business.’

  ‘That’s bollocks. Why the kiss?’

  McCann shrugged. ‘Why not? She’s a single woman. I’m a single man. It’s been a while. Like I said, gaining trust.’

  ‘You smirked at the camera, Gary. I’m not stupid. It’s a wind-up, isn’t it?’

  ‘There’s no wind-up at all. I can guarantee you, I’m deadly serious.’