Cut to the Bone (28 page)

Chapter Seventy-eight

Karl Rourke was nervous, sweating, pacing the interview room. He didn’t want a brief, he said; he was a lawyer, he could handle anything they accused him of. He sat down, but his body was dancing in the chair.

‘Karl, you claimed that on the night of Ruby’s disappearance, you were at home with your wife, Susan Rourke. At the time, Mrs Rourke backed up this claim.’

Kate was reading from her prepared opening gambit.

‘Since that time, CCTV footage has emerged of you at Windsor Court approximately five hours after Ruby disappeared. You were there for thirty minutes, after which the CCTV shows you leaving.’

Karl looked surprised. The CCTV to the back gate was not as obvious as the one to the front entrance. He probably hadn’t picked up on it.

‘I don’t have anything to hide,’ he said.

‘The video footage calls into question the alibi you provided us with for the night Ruby disappeared. After confronting your wife with this new evidence, she has now withdrawn her version of your alibi.’

‘Bitch,’ said Rourke, almost spitting the word.

‘She claims you were not at home until 2 a.m., having left home at 8 a.m. the day before. Meaning we currently have no idea where you were during the time Ruby disappeared.’

Rourke’s face was salmon-coloured. He wiped the sweat forming around his nose, before it dropped onto the table in front of him. His jacket was off. Kate saw the sweat stains expanding under his armpits.

‘My wife’s a liar, detective. I was at home from 7 p.m. I left the house just before midnight, once the Days had called me to ask me where Ruby was. And then I returned home again at 2 a.m., after I left Windsor Court.’

‘Your wife is very clear that you didn’t go home after work, that she didn’t see you until 2 a.m. Why would she lie?’

‘Because she’s being . . . she’s just having a turn. She’s got OCD. She’s pissed off I work so hard, and this is her axe grinding.’

‘You expect me to believe your wife is lying to the police?’

‘Yes. I told her to keep quiet about me leaving when I did, I admit that. I went to see Ruby’s parents, to see if I could help them out. That’s all.’

‘Why? Ruby was no longer your client. Did they invite you over?’

‘Yes. They were going crazy, wondering where Ruby was. I went round to help calm them down.’

Kate pressed a button on the laptop sitting between them.

‘Have a look,’ she said. ‘You are carrying a file of some sort in your right hand. When you left the building. We also found letters and documents from Ruby’s bedroom in trash bags, dumped in the waste area. What was in the file, Mr Rourke?’

‘Nothing. Just paperwork I needed. Business stuff.’

‘You have to do better than that, Karl. She was with MINDNET. What possible business documentation could she have that would be of interest to you?’

‘It’s the truth. Just some old invoices. I asked her to get me copies, she had them in a file. I saw them when I was at the flat. And I didn’t dump her stuff. Ruby must have done that herself, before she left.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ said Kate. ‘I want to see that file, I want to see what these documents are.’

‘Why? I was at home when she disappeared.’

‘Just you and your wife?’

‘Yes.’

‘What about the children?’

‘They were at a sleepover, or something. Or school trip.’

‘Was it planned? Them not being at home?’

‘I know what you’re doing. I did it on the night they wouldn’t be home. You know I should just say “no comment” until you realise you’ve fucked up. I’m helping you, though. I hope you appreciate that.’

‘Where were you on the evening Ruby Day disappeared, Karl? And don’t say at home.’

‘Look, check my mobile, it will confirm where I was.’

‘Mobiles can be left anywhere; it doesn’t mean you were with your phone,’ said Kate.

Michelle was working on getting a trace of Rourke’s phone. That would help them to at least work out which of the Rourkes was lying.

Chapter Seventy-nine

Zain looked out over the gardens of Buckingham Palace, his eyes needing a break from his screen. He wondered how secure the royal residence was, if someone like him could get a view like this. The sort of view a sniper could use.

He sat back down at his desk. Only Michelle was in the office, working away at trying to get a trace on Karl Rourke’s phone, and on his car registration. She was following protocol, asking the relevant agencies for help. Zain felt his fingers itch. He could crack Rourke’s phone within minutes, see if his internal GPS gave him away. He also missed access to the software that could trace a car through the thousands of cameras across London.

The F&M toffee had managed to raise a cordial hello to him today. He let his antsy tendencies dissipate, left Michelle to her methods. They would find out what they needed to, even using her simple techniques.

He chided himself then. He heard how arrogant he sounded, even to himself. He didn’t mean to; he just believed that if there was a smarter way to do things, they should take it. They owed it to the people they worked for. People like Ruby.

Shut up, Zain, he said to himself, and tapped away, trying to work out MINDNET’s internet presence.

Everything was linked to Jed Byrne – all internet articles,
Financial Times
reports, even their Wikipedia entry. Because that was always factual. He needed a spider web diagram to work out who MINDNET were. They couldn’t just spring up, a company like that, with the sort of resources they had, the offices they had.

And that man in the bathroom. He was so nondescript, so ordinary, like millions of men in offices. If Zain had to pick him out of a line-up, he’d fail. Yet he had set his mind reeling. Zain hadn’t spoken to Kate about it. She would have insisted he do things properly, bring the man into the office. Scare him away.

‘How you getting on?’ he called over to Michelle.

‘Slowly,’ she said. ‘Just waiting for his network to release his cell tower positions.’

Zain scrolled through more pages of data on Jed Byrne, and MINDNET. The same self-glorifying pieces about the YouTube stars and their power. Eventually, after scrawling through what seemed like hundreds of articles, Zain found something of interest.

He checked the directory for internet sites. MINDNET’s website was protected, ex-directory, no ownership details available. He next checked Ruby’s personal website. This was registered to her. He then recalled she had a number of sites, and so did Dan. So did the other stars tied in to MINDNET.

Zain checked their websites; most of them were personally registered, until he hit one that wasn’t. He checked the name the website was registered to. It wasn’t MINDNET; it was a firm called DORF Finance.

Zain did a search for them, and found they were a subsidiary of something called KANGlobal. DORF acted as the accountancy arm, the glorified petty cash tin, really, for KANGlobal, referred to as KNG in its abbreviated form.

Zain checked for KNG. They were an international conglomerate with interests in a number of ventures. Their primary sources of income seemed to be conservation research and sustainable exploration. Drilling down further, he realised that they were in fact a mining company, with a focus on oil and minerals, with operations across the world. Specifically West Africa.

Zain checked in with Lideo. It had a record of every company in existence, or so it claimed, with a breakdown of their last financial statements, if known, and who was behind them. Zain used the PCC login details.

He scanned through for MINDNET, which listed Jed Byrne. Then checked KNG.

‘Well, fuck me,’ he said, reading through the skeleton details. Detailed under the entry for KNG was a list of companies they had control of.

‘What is it?’ said Michelle.

‘MINDNET. They’re owned by one of the largest conglomerates in the world.’

Zain turned back to the KNG links he had found. The company was listed as being run by a board, a list of names. They didn’t mean anything to him. He checked Wikipedia for some of them; only a couple turned up. Professional board members, previously with banks.

‘Damn,’ said Michelle, interrupting the cogs that were making links in Zain’s head. ‘Karl Rourke was home when he said he was.’

‘Why would his wife lie?’

Michelle shrugged, turned back to her screen.

‘Still doesn’t explain what he was doing at Windsor Court,’ he said.

The image of Rourke with the files. The shredded contract. The dumped paperwork.

Zain started to see a pattern in his head. He needed to speak to Riley. And he really needed to speak to the mysterious MINDNET employee.

Chapter Eighty

Kate took her shoes off at the door, enjoying the blast of heat as she walked deeper into the house. Her mother was in the lounge, watching a film she had watched numerous times. It was always the same. She liked to watch films she knew well: she could keep track more easily if she knew what was meant to happen.

Kate felt an instinct to make contact. Kiss Jane on the head, touch her hand to her mother’s face. In her head, the gesture was so easy. In the room, the few metres between them were full of invisible walls. She had no energy to surmount that level of emotional barbed wire tonight.

Ryan was in the kitchen, washing his hands. His jacket was already on.

‘Coffee before you go?’ she said.

‘You know I swapped coffee for camomile tea,’ he said.

‘Just a quick chat? Please?’

Ryan nodded, and sat down with his hands in his pockets. He reminded her of someone, but she pushed the thought away.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Is it ever going to be enough? Just saying that?’

He shrugged.

‘She just worries about me. And I do too, about her. All that gets me through is knowing you’re here with her. I’ve had a day that just makes me want to quit, and if I had to think about her with someone . . . well, I need you. That’s what I’m trying to say.’

Kate reached her hands across the kitchen table, hoping he would meet them with his own. He didn’t, kept them deep in his jacket. He started to bite his lip, though. He was at least affected by the gesture.

‘Will it be so bad if we stop?’ she said. Yes, she thought. For me it will be.

‘I don’t know. I quite like the benefits package,’ he said, only half maliciously.

‘I wonder if she heard us? I’ll try to come home earlier more often. And the spare room is yours.’

‘I get it, no more knowing each other in the Biblical sense. You don’t have to make it so obvious,’ Ryan said.

‘So you’ll stay?’

‘I don’t know. I need some time. It’s not so easy. Her condition . . .’

He unsheathed his hands, let them fall on top of hers. Kate felt the atoms in her rise up to meet his touch, the familiar desire. She swallowed, hoping the gesture would send a signal to her brain. Ryan was now in a different box, only to be recalled as friend and carer.

‘I thought she was managing on her own?’ said Kate.

‘She is. The cell phone you gave her – so simple, why didn’t we think of that before? She calls me if she gets overwhelmed.’

Kate had given Jane a mobile. It enabled her to go shopping, for walks, to appointments. An app on it gave away her location wherever she was. In her pocket was a letter and next of kin form, in case the dementia reared up. The mobile was always unlocked; Kate and Ryan both had their details in the contacts list.

‘How did she get it? The prosopagnosia, I mean?’ he said.

Kate felt winded by the unexpected question. She had asked Ryan never to broach the subject. Was this his trade? Secrets from her past in exchange for a commitment to her future?

‘That word is so clinical, meaningless. Prosopagnosia. How does it say what it is?’ Kate heard the thickness in her voice, the pain, self-pity. ‘What it means,’ she went on, ‘to say that my mother can’t recognise faces. Not even mine. Her own daughter? That I have to wear a blond wig, because I stupidly changed my hair colour. That I have to wear scarlet when I approach her, because she panics and thinks a stranger is in the room if I don’t. And as if that wasn’t punishment enough, she’s now going to suffer from dementia?’

‘I thought the specialist said it was temporary? Just a side effect of the face blindness?’

‘I can’t tell you how much I hope that is true.’

‘How did she get it, Kate? If you want me to stay, I want to know. Let me help you. To do that I need the truth.’

Kate looked at him, the sincerity in his eyes. Could she trust him? She hadn’t trusted anyone for so long, not with this. And yet, she left Ryan to look after her mother. Maybe she had no choice but to trade now.

‘She was attacked. By my father.’

‘Jeez,’ said Ryan.

‘My father, he was involved with politics. Man of integrity, power. Impeccable public image. Only behind the scenes, he had corruption running through him like blood. He took bribes to help pass laws, backhanders to sway local politics. A phone call in the middle of the night, and some lowlife the cops had spent years chasing would walk free. And when I joined law enforcement, he tried to use me. He told me what he wanted from me. I mean, he pulled strings, got my career moving. Only so he could manipulate and use me.’

‘Let me guess. You refused.’

‘He made me sick. When I found out what he had been doing. He thought it would be genetic, that I would be like him. Bastard. I went along for a bit, got to know what he was up to. Turned evidence for the FBI, was their star witness in the end. He got sent away. But before he did, he hired someone to deal with me. I can’t prove it, but I know it was him. Only I wasn’t home, and they attacked my mother. Beat her to an inch of her life.’

Kate stopped, her breath catching. She would not cry, not ever, not because of him.

‘We had to go into witness protection. In case they came back for us. And my brothers, they took his side. They said my mother was attacked by someone I had messed with, someone I had arrested. They called me a liar, said I had betrayed them and our father.’

‘Fuck,’ said Ryan. ‘How did you keep all this to yourself?’

‘I have to. I’m trusting you with my life, Ryan. With my mother’s life. I chose not to stay in hiding in America, living a half-life. I came here, took a new name, and I relaunched my career. Officially, me and my mother are in witness protection in Key West still. Nobody knows I’m here. Nobody I don’t trust, anyway.’