Cold Kill (25 page)

‘So what do you want me to do?’

‘I want you to write about Don Roberts, to expose him,’ Adam said.

‘Don’s lawyer has already asked me to do the same, but a sympathy piece to help Don track down Jane’s killer.’

‘So he can kill Jane’s murderer,’ Adam said.

Jack shrugged. He had already worked that one out. ‘I need proof to write an exposé,’ he said.

‘So get it,’ Adam said. ‘Walk around the estate. Find the houses with graffiti, or where the kids are hanging out. Ask them what life is like. Speak to those who are paying Don, if you want to make it balanced.’

‘And what’s in it for you, apart from revenge?’ Jack said.

‘It’s about Jane,’ Adam replied. ‘Jane would not have been on her own if Don had treated us like a normal couple. I would have picked her up, or Don could have driven her down. But no, we had to run around and keep our secret, and so Jane was walking somewhere on her own. How do you think that makes me feel?’

‘My story won’t bring her back.’

‘No, it won’t,’ he said. ‘But it might just make a lot of other people’s lives a bit brighter.’

Jack nodded and smiled, although as he thought about how Don would react, it seemed that with every interview he did, his own life got a little more dangerous.

Chapter Forty-Two

Joe was on the phone to Carson, updating him, when Laura saw her.

She was middle-aged, with neat grey hair and a plain wine-coloured skirt. She had been walking along the street towards Doctor Barker’s house, and, as usual, the crime scene tape had an effect. It had been draped around lamp-posts, blue and white stripes, and for most people, it was curiosity, a chance to gawp at something out of the ordinary, maybe a word or two with the officer standing nearest. This woman was different. Her hand went to her mouth, shocked, her eyes wide, and then she looked around, as if she was unsure what to do.

Laura went with her gut instinct. She tapped Joe on the arm and pointed towards her. ‘She knows something.’

Joe stopped talking to Carson for a moment and nodded.

Laura set off to walk towards her, and as Laura got closer, she saw tears forming in the woman’s eyes.

‘I’m Detective Sergeant McGanity,’ Laura said, smiling, trying to reassure the woman. ‘Are you okay?’

The woman took a few seconds to respond, as if she had barely heard the words. ‘Is it Doctor Barker?’

‘Did you know him?’

The woman looked at Laura, confused. ‘Did? I don’t understand.’

Laura cursed herself. She had given away that he’d died and she did not know who the woman was, although as Laura looked back towards the house, at the forensic suits and police vehicles, it was obvious that something serious had happened.

‘Yes, I’m sorry,’ Laura whispered, trying to keep her voice low. ‘Doctor Barker has died. Did you know him?’

The woman looked at the house, and then back at Laura. ‘I heard the police were down here and I was worried, but I didn’t expect all of this.’ She took a tissue out of her handbag and ran it under her eyes. ‘How did he die?’

‘I can’t tell you, I’m sorry,’ Laura said. ‘Tell me how you knew him.’

‘I used to work for him, before he retired, I mean,’ she said. ‘I’m Anne. His practice is still there.’

‘So who works there now?’

‘Some new doctors. Just younger versions of Doctor Barker really.’

‘When was the last time you saw him?’ Laura asked.

Anne dabbed at her eye again. ‘That’s the weird thing,’ she said, sniffling. ‘He came to the practice this morning.’

‘Today?’ Laura asked, surprised.

Anne nodded. ‘He said he was tracking a former patient down.’

Laura tried to hide her eagerness, but she knew this was important. ‘Did he give a name?’

Anne shook her head. ‘He said a former patient had sought him out and asked for his help, but he couldn’t remember anything about the case.’

‘How did he seem?’

Anne thought about that, and then said, ‘Now that you mention it, he did seem a bit jumpy and nervous. More than usual, anyway, because he was normally very calm.’

‘Did he find what he wanted?’ Laura said.

‘I don’t know,’ Anne replied. ‘I didn’t see him with anything, but I was talking to someone else at the time. He just said goodbye and then he went.’

‘What time was this?’

‘Not long after we opened up,’ Anne said. ‘Nearly ten, I think.’

And then he went straight to the police, Laura thought, before saying, ‘Come with me.’

Anne looked suddenly scared. ‘I don’t want to see him,’ she said. ‘Not if he’s dead.’

‘No, not that,’ Laura said. ‘I want to go to the office with you, because if Doctor Barker didn’t take anything with him, whatever he was looking for must still be there. Come to the car.’

Anne thought about that, and then nodded her agreement. Laura could feel Anne’s nervousness as they walked to Joe’s car. Once Anne had climbed into the back, Laura gestured for Joe to join her.

‘What is it?’ he asked, once he reached her.

‘We’ve got a lead,’ Laura whispered, talking over the roof of the car and pointing towards the back seat. ‘Barker was at his old office this morning, looking for details of a former patient, just before he came to Blackley.’

‘Sounds promising,’ Joe said, and climbed into the driver’s seat, turning around just to smile a hello.

The journey was a short one, Anne taking them through side streets lined by shops selling seaside buckets and metallic balloons. As they followed her into the building where she worked, Laura wondered what her new employers would think about her bringing the police with her. She didn’t have to wait long to get her answer, because as Anne took them along a corridor lined by cheap carpet tiles, a door opened further along and a man with skeletal features and greying hair cropped right down to his skull appeared in front of them.

‘Can I help you?’ he asked, his smile polite but firm, stretching his skin further. It seemed to Laura that his intention was to stop them rather than help them.

Laura introduced herself, but before Joe could join in, the man said, ‘I guessed what you were as soon as I saw you. The question was how I could help you. What is the answer to that?’

‘Doctor Barker came here this morning, looking for something,’ Laura said, fighting to keep the irritation out of her voice. ‘We need to know what he was looking for.’

‘Doctor Barker?’ He looked at Anne, confused, and when she nodded, her eyes down, the man smirked. ‘Why don’t you just ask him?’

Laura glanced at Joe, who nodded. The secret was already out. ‘He’s dead,’ Laura said bluntly. ‘Killed, we think, because of whatever he found here this morning.’

The smirk disappeared as the man glanced over at Anne, who nodded tearfully and then cast her eyes to the ground again.

‘Why didn’t you tell us Rupert was here?’ he whispered to Anne.

‘I’m sorry, we haven’t got much time’ Laura said, stepping closer. ‘I just want to stop this happening to someone else.’ She turned to Anne. ‘Show me what he was looking at.’

‘He went to the archive files,’ Anne said

The man didn’t move. ‘Those are still confidential files. I can’t just turn them over.’

‘We don’t want the files. We just want to know which file he was looking at,’ Laura said, as she stared him down.

‘I can’t see the difference,’ he said.

‘What about this then?’ Laura said. ‘If Doctor Barker was killed because of what he knew, then how do we know that other people here won’t be next? Because the murderer will kill again.’ She pointed at Anne. ‘Maybe her, and perhaps even you.’ Laura stepped closer. ‘It’s just the name. Nothing more. Which file did a murdered man look at just before he was killed? Or is your own personal pride worth more than someone’s life?’

‘It’s a professional obligation,’ he said, some uncertainty creeping into his voice.

‘What about risking that to save some lives? Or is your professional obligation more important than saving a life?’ Laura persisted.

The man considered that for a few seconds longer, and then stepped to one side. Anne walked towards a panelled wooden door halfway along the corridor, thick with decades of paint. Laura could see her hands trembling.

‘The archives are down here,’ Anne said, and she dug into her purse for the key. She pushed at the door and stepped inside to turn on the light. ‘Everything is down there.’

‘Come with us,’ Laura said. When Anne flashed an uncertain look at her boss, Laura added, ‘you will be able to tell us if anything has been moved.’

When Anne got the nod that she should cooperate, they all descended into the damp and cold of the cellar.

It was lined by wooden racks and piled high with boxes. The dust made Laura’s nose itch, and then she exhaled loudly. Where should they start?

Joe stepped past her and began to read the dates on the boxes. ‘You only treat children here?’ he asked Anne, and when she nodded, he said, ‘We’ll need to go back a few years, as the newest boxes will make the patients too young.’ He began to walk along, examining the outside of the boxes, not the contents. Then he stopped and reached for a box from the top shelf, just at his eye-level. He grunted with effort as he put it onto the floor. ‘Nineteen eighty-five,’ he said. ‘The dust has been disturbed on the lid, and that would make him about the right age.’

Joe removed the lid and put it on the floor before he groaned. The box was filled with files, all lined up neatly.

‘There are some more boxes here with marks in the dust,’ Laura said, and grabbed the next one along.

‘Get down all the boxes where the dust has been disturbed,’ Joe said, and as he and Laura looked along the shelves, they saw there six boxes with marks on the lids. Laura watched as Joe popped the lid on each one in turn, they were all filled to bursting with files.

But the final box was different.

Joe looked into the box and then at Laura, before he got to his feet.

‘There’s your answer,’ he said.

Laura had to agree. In all the other boxes, the files were lined up, filed away. In this box, however, one file had been removed and placed on top of the others.

Joe picked up the file. ‘Shane Grix,’ he said, as he read the name on the cover. Then he opened it and began to flick through the contents. Laura watched as his eyes widened.

Anne looked at Laura, uncertainty in her eyes. Laura raised a finger to her lips to ask her not to say anything.

Anne looked at the floor, her hands clasped in front of her, as Joe read. He flicked through the pages, sometimes pausing to consider something in more detail. After a few minutes, he handed the file back to Anne, who looked nervously at the cover.

‘Thank you,’ Joe said. ‘You might have helped us catch a killer,’ and as he rushed for the stairs, Laura followed quickly behind.

Chapter Forty-Three

As the sound of Adam’s car disappeared into the hills, Jack grabbed his own car keys and headed outside. He needed to be at Bobby’s school, in case his father was late. As he climbed into his car, he wondered what to do with the information he had been given. He wanted to write about Jane, but what Adam had told him fitted in with the piece he had partly finished for Dolby on the Whitcroft estate. Dolby wanted it to sneer at those who always came up against the tougher side of life, but Adam’s version gave the story a villain: Don Roberts.

He went to turn on the engine, but then paused and reached for his phone. He dialled Dolby’s number, who answered on the second ring.

‘How late can I leave the Whitcroft story?’ Jack said.

There was a pause, and then Dolby said, ‘I thought it was almost done.’

‘It is, but I’ve got another angle,’ Jack said.

‘I don’t want another angle.’

‘This ties in with Jane Roberts, the dead woman.’

Jack could almost hear Dolby’s thoughts as he pondered on whether to allow Jack extra time. Eventually, Dolby said, ‘How so?’

‘The security on the estate is managed by Jane’s father,’ Jack said.

‘That’s a tenuous link.’

‘Not really. Jane had a good upbringing, much more affluent than those people on the estate, but it was partly paid for by them.’

‘And with a tragic postscript, because Jane was killed,’ Dolby said, and Jack could hear him thinking. ‘Write it up, see how it comes out.’

‘Will do.’

‘It needs to go in tomorrow though. Two pages.’

‘I know, I know, but this will add something to it.’

Dolby sighed at the other end, and Jack knew he had just earned himself a late night.

The car started on the first turn of the keys. It was a good omen. Bobby first, and then it was back to the Whitcroft estate.

Laura put her phone into her pocket. They were heading towards the last known address of Shane Grix.

‘He doesn’t appear on the system,’ she said. ‘If Shane Grix is dangerous, he’s avoided detection.’

‘For the last few years anyway,’ Joe said. ‘Remember there was a time when our computer records were not that good, and so if he’s been off the radar for more than fifteen years, he might not appear.’

‘And he might have changed his name,’ she said. ‘So if the name isn’t known to us, what did you see in the file that got you so interested?’

Joe glanced over. ‘Shane Grix,’ he said. ‘A quiet kid from a nice family. Adopted. It’s a bit of the old nature versus nurture thing, I suppose, but it seems that in this case quiet also meant withdrawn, and bullied.’

‘There’s a child in every school who is bullied,’ Laura said. ‘It doesn’t make it right, but it doesn’t make it exceptional either.’

Joe smiled. ‘Do you remember what I told you about why some children are cruel to animals, or set fires?’

‘Power,’ she said. ‘Or, at least, how they react to feeling powerless. They strike back at things weaker than themselves.’

‘Exactly, and that’s why young Shane went to see a child psychologist. He was mistreating small animals.’

Laura could see the gleam in Joe’s eyes, the academic side of him taking over, relishing the chance to chase a theory rather than a killer. She turned away and watched the seascape flash into view as they passed the ends of those streets that ran towards it, just glimpses of bright blue.