by Helen Phifer
The Mercedes accelerated rapidly in the direction of the drive-through McDonald’s. He wondered whether the treat was for the kid or to appease his father. This was a nuisance. He didn’t want to follow them through the drive-through; there might be cameras. He parked up outside Pizza Hut, his car facing the drive-through. As the Mercedes finally stopped at the window to collect the food order, he took a couple of quick snaps of the unsuspecting family inside. The boy, who had been having some kind of episode, had calmed down. He’d put his window down and he could see his face clearly – he was playing with a toy car. The young girl at the collection window passed the bags of greasy food and the drinks tray to the father, who passed them across to his wife and then drove away.
He had the patience of a saint, but he was fed up now. He had other things to do today; he didn’t want to waste a full day following them around. Hopefully now they had their food they’d go straight home and not park up somewhere to tuck into it. He pulled out onto the road a couple of cars behind them and trailed them as they drove onto the promenade, turning left and heading along the stretch of coastal road that led to a housing estate. He held his breath, hoping they wouldn’t indicate to drive into it, because it would be too busy. But the car drove past the estate and he paused to let a bus pull out in front of him; the roads were pretty quiet and he didn’t want them to realise they were being followed. Then again, why would they suspect any such thing? This was Brooklyn Bay, not London or Manchester.
Finally the car indicated to turn off. He couldn’t follow now because it wasn’t a busy street. There weren’t enough houses or cars for him to be able to blend in. In fact, there were only three houses that he could see, and all of them were detached with big gardens and hedges separating them. This was ideal – he couldn’t have chosen any better if he’d tried.
He had to know which house was theirs. He stopped his car on the street corner, took out his phone and put it to his ear, pretending to have a conversation whilst he watched as the Mercedes turned into the drive of the last house on the street. He waited to see how they entered the house; for all he knew they could just be visiting family. After five minutes he drove up the street – the front door was wide open and the kid was sitting on the front step eating his Happy Meal, still playing with his toy car. His mum stepped around him, opening the boot of the car and lifting out some of the shopping bags. Bingo.
Doing his best to look lost, he put his window down and asked her if she knew where Queen’s Drive was. She shook her head, which was fine by him because he didn’t even know if such a place existed. Turning the car around, he waved at the kid, who stared back at him. Then he drove off, smiling to himself.
Chapter Seventeen
Browning walked into the CID office clutching a DVD case to his chest as if his life depended on it. Lucy, who was a tier-five interview coordinator, and Mattie, who was a tier-three interview-trained officer, were working on the interview strategy for Lewis Waite. It was their job to make sure it went as smoothly as possible and that their line of questioning brought them the results they were after. Lucy had decided that they should initially approach him as a witness and not a suspect.
‘I want to get him on side, show him we understand how upset he must be about Stacey. Basically treat him with kid gloves in the first session. Which is what we’d do anyway – don’t be too heavy-handed. Show him some sympathy, break him down a bit, then we’ll take a break. When you go back in, start on the hard-hitting questions and see how he reacts.’
Browning knocked on her office door before entering. ‘Have you got a moment, boss? You’re going to want to take a look at this CCTV; it’s good.’
Lucy looked up at him. ‘Really?’
‘Yes, really. I’d say it hands our killer over on a plate.’
Mattie leant across the desk and high-fived Lucy. ‘Well that would make a refreshing change.’
She nodded, not daring to raise her hopes. She stood up and followed Browning and Mattie across to Col’s desk. Col came across to them carrying a stack of files, which he placed face down on the desk. His was the only computer that was all singing and all dancing. Most of the others ran so slowly that it would take an hour to get the disc to load, never mind to actually play. Browning handed the DVD to Col, who took it from him and inserted it into the disc drive. Lucy prayed that this was what they needed; it would be so good to get the case wrapped up quickly.
The footage began to play and the screen was filled with a clear picture of the nightclub’s bar area. It was busy in there. A woman, who was clearly their victim, was tapped on the shoulder by Lewis Waite. She turned around to face him and they began to argue.
‘Is there any sound?’
Browning shook his head. ‘I listened to it and all you can hear is the thud, thud of the music. It’s too loud to hear what they’re saying.’
‘That’s a shame, but at least it puts him and her together in the nightclub.’
The woman lifted her hand and slapped Lewis hard across his cheek. Browning stole a glance at Lucy, who let out a small whoop. ‘Motive – he’s pissed off at her for hitting him and showing him up in the club?’
Mattie nodded in agreement. They watched as Lewis shoved her, then stopped and was escorted out by two bouncers. The woman turned, bumping into someone else just out of sight of the camera. Her clutch bag fell to the floor, spilling its entire contents everywhere. They watched as she bent down to pick up her things. Someone was helping her, but they were off camera. Then she disappeared from the screen.
‘Where’s she gone?’
‘Toilets.’
The footage paused as it switched to another camera showing their victim going into the ladies’ toilets alone and coming back out on her own. This time she went across to the bar, the camera picking her up again there. Another woman handed her a shot glass and she downed it.
‘This is awful. She’s there having a good time until her argument with Lewis, but it doesn’t seem to put her off. I love that we have such good CCTV evidence; I just hate watching it knowing how it’s all going to end.’
Mattie nodded. ‘It makes me feel queasy.’
Browning looked away from the screen at Lucy. ‘She stays in the club for a couple more hours – she spends most of that on the dance floor and at the bar. She leaves at 1.50 a.m. on her own. The doorman has to ask her to leave because she’s a bit worse for wear. You can see her wandering down the street from the club until she’s out of sight of the camera.’
‘So she’s heading for her flat, not knowing that her killer is lying in wait for her. Good work, Browning. This is brilliant evidence – we can use it in the interview. What about Lewis? Do you know what time he left the club?’
Browning pulled another disc out of his pocket. ‘This one shows a man who I believe is the same guy she’s arguing with. He’s escorted out of the club after their little spat. He walks off in the opposite direction from where she heads later, though.’
‘That doesn’t matter; he might have taken the long way round. There are a couple of hours between their argument and her leaving.’
Mattie nodded. ‘He’s looking good for this.’
Lucy agreed, but she wasn’t getting her hopes up because there was still the issue of the missing shoes and she didn’t want to put all her eggs into one basket. There was a lot of circumstantial evidence to suggest that Lewis Waite was responsible, but what they really needed was some solid forensic evidence linking him to the body. He’d already trampled the crime scene – would he have done this if he knew that Stacey Green was lying dead where he’d left her? Lucy had a feeling that maybe he would. She tried to ignore the gnawing sensation in the pit of her stomach. Even if Lewis wasn’t the killer, he was a key witness. They needed to trace and interview the friends that Stacey was with last night in the club, as well as the bar staff, doormen and bouncers. Lucy dialled Ellie’s number, wondering how she’d take the news that she had to work late. Ellie didn’t answer so she left her a voicemail.
Chapter Eighteen
He drove towards the M6, having arranged to meet a guy at the service station before the M61 turn-off. That family was perfect. It didn’t matter to him what age, race or colour they were. He needed a family of three for the next part of his plan and they fitted the criteria. He’d done his homework well; he had struggled to find a contact for a gun until he’d met seventeen-year-old JD, who was a respected member of one of the local gangs. He’d helped him out of a tight spot and the kid had told him that if he needed anything, he was his man. Of course, JD had been a little shocked when he’d told him he needed a handgun.
‘Man, you don’t need no gun – what you gonna do with it?’
He’d shrugged. ‘Best I don’t tell you.’
JD had looked him up and down. ‘Shit, you serious? You’re not having me on?’
He nodded.
‘Right, well leave it with me. Give me your number and I’ll hook you up with a guy I know from Liverpool.’
He’d passed him a scrap of paper with the number of the pay-as-you-go mobile that he’d bought from Tesco a couple of months ago written on it. The boy had taken it from him, pushing it deep into his pocket.
‘This is between you and me, right? I’d lose my job if they found out I had a handgun. I need your word.’
JD nodded. ‘Too right this is between us – you don’t need to worry about a thing. I owe you, man.’
Pretty soon he’d meet whoever it was that was selling it to him in a corner of the motorway café car park. It was cash on delivery. He’d hired this car for the day so if they took his number plate it wouldn’t lead them back to his address. It also covered him for the ANPR cameras. He knew that there were lots of them dotted along the motorways and the various main roads in and around the county. JD had offered to come with him, but he’d declined. The fewer people knew about his actions, the better. The kid might have hooked him up, but he had no idea what he wanted the gun for.
He parked in the quietest corner of the car park, as far away from the busy service station as he could be. He didn’t intend to go inside, even though he would kill for a coffee and something to eat. There would be too many cameras in the building that would capture his image; if the CCTV footage got passed to the police it wouldn’t be that hard to trace him. He picked up the newspaper from the passenger seat and began to read the latest stories.
He didn’t get to the end of the front page before a black Audi parked next to him. Its almost black, tinted rear windows made it impossible to see who was sitting in the back seat. The driver, who was a good ten years older than JD, nodded at him, and he nodded back. He pushed the button and waited for his window to go down; the driver of the Audi did the same.
‘You the guy JD told me about?’
He nodded. ‘That’s right, I’m the man.’
‘What is it you want?’
‘Exactly what I told JD. He told you, didn’t he?’
The driver looked across at the huge guy sitting next to him and laughed. ‘He told me okay – he said you were the man. Get out of your car and walk to the bin over there, leave the money on your seat and I’ll do you a swap. Don’t come back to the car until I’ve driven away. Am I clear? You understand that?’
‘Yes. How do I know you’re not going to take the money and run?’
‘Well then, mister, you don’t, do you? You just going to have to trust me.’
He didn’t trust him one little bit, but he didn’t have any other option. He picked up his unfinished newspaper and got out of the car, walking towards the nearest bin to dump it. As hard as it was not to turn around, he managed to resist, even though the whole time he wondered how much shit he would be in with the rental company for leaving the keys in an unattended car at a busy service station. He dropped the paper in the bin and slowly turned around. The Audi was driving away and thankfully the car was where he’d left it. He walked back towards it, opened the door and picked up the heavy brown paper bag that had been placed on his seat. Casually tossing it into the passenger-side footwell, he shut his door and turned the key in the ignition, his hands slick with sweat.
It was certainly heavy enough to be a handgun. He’d just bought his first and last illegal firearm – as soon as he’d used it he’d be throwing it into the sea at the end of the pier. Straight into the grimy waters off Brooklyn Bay, where it would hopefully either be carried out to sea or embed itself into a sand bank. Either way, it didn’t matter; if anyone found it the salty seawater would have got rid of any DNA or trace evidence, rendering it inadmissible as evidence in court. He knew they could match the bullets up to the barrel of the gun, but hopefully they wouldn’t find it until it was covered in rust and barnacles, any evidence washed away. His plan was running perfectly.
Chapter Nineteen
Lucy ran her fingers through her hair. It was too warm in the station and she was stressed. Mattie walked back into the incident room with his clipboard. Browning followed, his tie loosened and his top three shirt buttons undone.
‘Tell me he’s made a full and frank confession.’
‘No, he hasn’t. He went the “no comment” route, apart from at the beginning when he was talking about their relationship before he screwed it up. Then he swore it had nothing to do with him.’
‘Fuck.’
‘Double fuck. And now he has to go up to the hospital because whatever shit he last injected into his veins has worn off and he needs to see a doctor. So Smithy is pissed because he’s had to send two officers up with him to guard him.’
‘Bloody hell.’
‘So there’s nothing more we can do tonight.’
She looked at the clock on the wall – it was almost 10 p.m. ‘Right, well let’s call it a day. He’ll be at the hospital for hours and then he’ll need to get his eight hours’ beauty sleep in before we can question him again anyway. We might as well go home and get some rest.’
Browning almost cracked a smile.
Lucy drove into her street and felt her heart skip a beat to see the landing and living-room lights on in her house. She hadn’t been home all day and they definitely weren’t on when she left this morning. Parking outside, she phoned Ellie, who answered straight away.
‘Sorry, Mum – it’s me, I’m in the house. I got us a Chinese. You’ll have to warm yours up; it’s probably cold by now.’
‘Thanks, sweetheart, I was just checking.’
Getting out of the car, her heart rate slowed down to its normal pace. Lizzy Clements had left her a nervous wreck, even though Lucy would never admit it to anyone. She hated that she felt this way. At one point she wasn’t afraid of anything but now she was afraid of almost everything and it didn’t feel right. She needed to get over it because Lizzy Clements couldn’t hurt her or Ellie any more; she was dead. As she walked towards the front door, it opened and she was pleased to see Ellie standing there in a fluffy brown pair of pyjamas, which made her look like a five-foot teddy bear.
‘You’re sleeping here?’
‘Yes, if it’s okay?’
‘Of course it’s okay. I love seeing you. Especially after crappy days like today.’
‘Good – I didn’t want you to be on your own tonight after you left that message.’
Lucy looked at her daughter, who had grown up more in the last month than she could ever have imagined. She followed her inside the house, locking the front door behind them. The smell of whatever Chinese delights Ellie had ordered filled her nostrils and her stomach groaned in appreciation.
‘I’m starving and you are an angel.’
Ellie laughed. ‘Before you start praising me, I do have a reason for being so nice.’
‘I don’t care – you put the heating on and brought food. As long as you’re not pregnant we’re good.’
‘Mum. As if. You actually need a boyfriend for that to happen.’
Lucy kicked off her shoes and shrugged off her coat. Hanging it up in the hall cupboard, she noticed a large, brown envelope on the hall table. She decided that whatever it was could wait, and ran upstairs.
‘Let me have a shower and some food before you go upsetting me.’
Ellie rolled her eyes, but smiled. She went back into the living room, where MTV was on the television. She lowered the sound and went into the kitchen to dish up the food.
Lucy came down wrapped in a fluffy cream dressing gown with a towel around her damp hair. She walked into the kitchen and sat on one of the stools at the breakfast bar, ready to devour the plate of food that Ellie had placed in front of her.
‘Do you want a glass of wine?’
She shook her head. ‘I’m too knackered. I’ll be asleep before I finish my lunch, tea, supper. So what is it you wanted to ask me?’
Ellie paused for a few seconds, then blurted it out. ‘You know Fern? Her parents are going on a cruise and she doesn’t want to go on her own so they’ve said she can take a friend with her. Please can I go? Dad said I could, but he said I had to clear it with you first.’
Lucy, who had just shoved a huge forkful of noodles into her mouth, was grateful for the few extra seconds to compose herself. Bloody George would say it was okay. She didn’t know if she was happy about her daughter going off on a cruise.
‘Please don’t freak out about it, Mum, it’s just a ten-day cruise around the Mediterranean. There won’t be any pirates to come on board the boat to kidnap us and the last time I looked you and Dad weren’t Liam Neeson, so it’s not like Taken 4 is going to happen.’
Lucy couldn’t help it and began to laugh. ‘Ellie, don’t be so cheeky. I’m not freaking out. Well, maybe a little. I don’t really know Fern or her parents – I’d worry about you.’