Dying Art (A Dylan Scott Mystery) (20 page)

“She still is,” Dylan said. “But I suppose having a baby changed her. Even she had to lean toward responsibility.”

He smiled at that. “True. Of course, none of us knew she was expecting you. She just upped and left one day.”

“What? No one knew?”

“Not a soul.”

It was the perfect time to talk possible fathers, but Dylan couldn’t do it. Instead, he finished his coffee and rose, somewhat awkwardly given that he had a fair-sized mug in his pocket, to his feet.

“Thanks so much for the coffee, Boris, but I must get off or I’ll be late. It’s been good to see you.”

“You, too, Dylan. Keep in touch, won’t you?”

“I will. And you.” He knew he wouldn’t. At least, he hoped he wouldn’t.

He walked, crablike, to his car, waving at Boris all the way.

Once inside, he fired the engine and drove off in totally the wrong direction. He couldn’t believe he’d actually stolen one of Boris’s mugs. It was complete and utter madness.

Now that he had it though, he needed to find a lab. If they could lift DNA from the mug and compare it to a swab taken from him, he’d be able to quash all notions of Boris being his father.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Trying to talk to teenagers while staying off CID radar wasn’t easy. It had taken Dylan three days to get to this position.

His first job on arriving in Dawson’s Clough had been to meet up with Frank and see what he’d managed to find out from his chums on the force. Not a lot, was the answer. They seemed to know little more than had already been reported in the local press. Kevin Mills had met up with a girl and a few other friends and had never made it home. No one knew any more than that.

Kevin’s parents had believed he was at a football practice session arranged by the school that night. There had been no activities at the school though. Kevin had dumped his football kit in the cemetery close to his home, intending to collect it at the end of the evening, and met up with his girlfriend.

Dylan had spoken to several of Kevin’s school friends, but none had known anything that hadn’t been reported in the local press. When he’d asked if Kevin could have known Prue, they’d all looked at him as if he’d bungee-jumped from the moon. Now, finally, he was walking through the shopping centre with Carly Trueman.

“We’ve told the police all we know,” she said. “They were at the school for days. We’ve had them asking us questions, we’ve had to sit through services for Kevin, we’ve had some woman talking about counselling—we’ve had the lot.”

She looked pale and frightened, and her eyes darted left and right as if she expected to see a killer or Kevin’s ghost.

“The police have been to my house, too,” she said. “They think I was the last person to see him.”

Kevin’s killer was the last person to see him.

“The police are okay,” he said. “They’re just trying to find out what happened. His parents will feel better when they know that.” At least, he hoped they found some sort of closure.

“Yeah.” She gave him a long distrustful look. “So why are you here asking questions? Why don’t you just ask the police?”

“I used to be a policeman, Carly, but these days, I work independently. They get busy and I have more time to get to the bottom of things.” That sounded official, as if the force would welcome his input. He didn’t attempt to make it clearer.

They passed a small café and he saw her gaze linger on a plate of cakes.

“Would you like a drink or something to eat?” he asked.

“I wouldn’t mind.”

The warmth hit them as soon as they stepped inside. There was only one customer, a woman sitting at a table who had a coffee in one hand and a sniffling toddler in the other. Hopefully, she’d be too preoccupied to wonder what this nervous-looking fifteen-year-old girl was doing with a forty-year-old man.

“What would you like, Carly?”

“A lemonade, please.” She looked at the display of cakes. “And a slice of chocolate cake?”

He ordered two slices of cake, a lemonade and a pot of tea.

While they waited, he talked about the weather, and about Bev and the kids—anything to get her to relax. It didn’t work. The poor kid was too shaken.

“You said a woman talked to you about counselling,” he said when their food and drinks were finally in front of them and they were sitting in a warm corner. “That’s not as bad as it sounds, you know. All it means really is having a chat with someone who understands how awful it is when a friend dies.”

“Yeah, I know. She was all right, too. The woman who came to the school, I mean. She didn’t talk to us as if we were kids. I might go.” She bit into her cake. “I’ll think about it.”

“Good idea. It’s hard to lose a friend. Talking about it often helps.”

She bit her lip and nodded.

“Were you good friends, you and Kevin?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“How was he when he left you that night? Was he okay? Was there anything bothering him?”

“He was great—the same as he always was. The police kept asking me that. There’s nothing I could tell them and there’s nothing I can tell you. Kevin was the same as he always was.”

Dylan nodded and smiled, but there was probably a lot she could tell him if he fed her the right prompts. “You’d been under the bridge, hadn’t you? I hear you met up for a couple of drinks?”

“That was my idea.” She picked at her cake. “There were a few of us there. We had a couple of drinks and a laugh. That was all.”

“And then Kevin walked you home?”

“Yes.”

“And he was happy enough?” Dylan asked.

“Of course he was.” She sounded confident about that. “We were going to meet up the next night.”

“He didn’t discuss any problems he was having?”

“No.” She shook her head slowly. “He didn’t have any problems. I know his dad was drinking a lot, ever since he lost his job, but that didn’t worry Kevin. He didn’t like it, but as he said, there was nothing any of them could do about it.”

Thanks to a chat with Frank and a scan of the local paper, Dylan knew about Kevin’s father and he could sympathise. Ron Mills had been drinking and gambling in equal measures since losing his job and his driving licence. Dylan could still remember the dark days after he’d been thrown out of the police force and, as he’d seen it then, onto the scrap heap. He’d hit the drink, too. But now, Mills had lost his son. Dylan hoped the poor bugger was getting support from somewhere.

“Did you know he’d told his parents he had football practice that night?” Dylan asked.

“No, he didn’t mention it. But I told my mum and dad I was going round to a girlfriend’s house to do homework, and I didn’t tell Kev that. It never crossed my mind.” She gulped down half a glass of lemonade. “I’ve told the police all this.”

“I know, Carly, and I’m sorry to make you go over it all again, but you might know more than you think.”

“I don’t know anything.”

Only a few crumbs, and an empty glass remained in front of her.

“Did you know Prue Murphy?” he asked her and her head flew up.

“Why do you ask that?”

“I’m curious.”

She traced something on the table. All the while her foot was tapping on the floor. “No. I didn’t know her.”

“Did Kevin?”

“No.” Her answer was too quick and she knew it.

“I think he did, Carly. I was at her funeral and I saw Kevin hanging around the church. How did he know her?”

“He didn’t know her so I don’t know why you’re asking about her. Kev said—” She broke off. “It was nothing though. Even he didn’t know what he’d seen.”

“What do you mean, Carly?”

“First off, I didn’t know Prue Murphy. Second off, Kev didn’t know her either.”

Dylan waited but she was still tracing lines on the table. “But?” he asked.

“He saw something.”

“What did he see?”

“Well—it’s hard to say. You know the night she was killed? He’d been grounded that night. He’d crept out of the house, though, and he stopped near her house to have a smoke before he went home. While he was standing there, a man came out of that woman’s house. He wondered if it could have been the burglar they’re looking for but, like I told him, it couldn’t have been. Kev said he was wearing a suit. Who heard of a burglar wearing a suit?”

So that was it. Kevin Mills had seen Prue’s killer and it had cost him his life.

“Not me,” he said. “What did this man look like?”

Carly shook her head and shrugged. “I told Kev he should have gone to the police but, like he said, what was the point? He couldn’t have given them a description of the bloke. He thought he was wearing a suit, but that was all.” She thought of something else. “It was the car he noticed. The day before—before Kev was killed—he saw a car and he thought it might have been the one outside that woman’s house that night.”

“Oh?”

“It was a different one though.”

“What was different about it, Carly?”

“I don’t know. Sorry.”

“The car he saw when you were with him. What was it like? Was it a sports car? A big car? An old car?”

“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t see it.”

“How did he know it wasn’t the same car that was parked outside Prue Murphy’s house?”

“I don’t know.” She stopped for a moment to replay everything Kevin had said. “I don’t know, but it might have had something to do with the registration plate. When I said he should have gone to the police, he said there was no point because they wouldn’t thank him for giving him no description of the bloke and only half a registration plate. He couldn’t have gone anyway because he didn’t want his dad knowing he’d sneaked out of the house when he was supposed to be grounded.”

Dylan tried everything he could to refresh her memory, but she was adamant that Kevin hadn’t said more about the car and she hadn’t seen the one that had been similar.

“Who else might he have spoken to about it?” he asked.

“Probably no one. He only told me because I was with him when he saw that other one.”

“Who are his friends? Who’s his best friend, Carly?”

“Darren’s his best mate. They’re always together. Then there’s Jason and Ethan Rodgers.” She shrugged. “He got on well with everyone though.”

Dylan had spoken to Darren, and to the Rodgers brothers. They’d looked blank when he’d asked about Prue. All the same, he’d have another chat with them and find out if Kevin had mentioned cars to them.

“It’s time I was going,” Carly said. “Parents are panicking if we stay out later than we should.”

“Of course. Do you want me to give you a lift home?”

“Thanks, but no.” She smiled a little wistfully. “I like being on my own at the moment.”

“Okay.” He handed her his card. “If there’s anything you need, if there’s anything at all I can do, or if you remember anything—”

“Okay.” She put his card in her pocket and gave him a smile. “Thanks. I’ll call you. Be seeing you.”

He watched her leave the café and stride along the pavement with her head down and her shoulders hunched. She was young and the young were blessed with resilience in abundance. She would bounce back. At least, he hoped she would.

So—Kevin, it seemed, had seen Prue Murphy’s killer. That man wore a suit on the night in question and drove a car that had claimed a sixteen-year-old’s attention. Because it was sporty? Because it was expensive? Because it had a personalised number plate?

Dylan took out his phone and hit Luke’s number.

“Hey, Dad, you should hear my new ringtone. It’s wicked. I copied it from Tom’s.”

“I’m fine, Luke. Thanks so much for asking. How are you?”

Luke snorted with laughter. “I’m pretty good, too. I’m hanging out at Tom’s. It really is a wicked ringtone though.”

“Good.” Luke didn’t have a care in the world, which was as it should be. “Luke, what’s your dream car?”

“What? Well, a Subaru. Obviously. Why?”

“A black one? Red?”

“Don’t talk daft. No, it would have to be blue with the yellow trim. Why do you want to know? Are you going to buy me one, ready for when I’m old enough to drive?”

“Nope. What’s your second favourite?”

“If I couldn’t have a Subaru, I’d settle for a Mini Cooper S—black and white. Or a Beetle, maybe, like that one we saw. The one that was painted to look like a motorbike, remember?”

Dylan remembered it well. Subaru, Mini or Beetle—so long as they were painted the correct way. The paintwork attracted Luke, not the price or the technology. Luke was younger, but perhaps Kevin had also been a fan of colourful paintwork too.

“Got to go, Dad. Tom’s dad’s taking us to that new bowling place.”

“Okay. Have fun and I’ll see you at the weekend.”

Phone calls to Luke were always short. Luke was too busy enjoying life to stop and chat. It didn’t matter though. Dylan’s main reason for calling had been to hear the sound of his son’s voice, to know that he was safe and happy. Luke’s car preferences had been secondary.

Kevin’s choice of vehicle might have been very different. Dylan didn’t know. He did know that spotting that car—and the driver—had cost Kevin his life. He also knew that, come hell or high water, he’d find the bastard who’d killed Kevin and wrecked that family.