Hope Road (21 page)

He gives Den a ring.

“Hi, it’s me,” he says before she can stop him. “Are you at Millgarth? Look, I’ve got a favour to ask. I don’t think you’re gonna like it…”

S
he doesn’t like it.

But she doesn’t think Freddy’s a murderer either. Most of Millgarth agrees. The station’s rumour mill is churning out the theories, but one is clear: the lad in the cells should be croaking for it by now, the state he’s in. Only, he’s not, and Baron is dithering on a charge. There’s gotta be a reason.

She tries not to think about Freddy as she makes her way down the bare concrete steps to the secure area in the basement. Forensics are long gone, but the red Mondeo is still there, waiting to be towed to storage. From the other side of the wire mesh she stands and looks at it, her arms folded tight across her chest.

“Hello there!” comes a cheerful voice.

There’s been a lot of cheerful voices the last two days. She’s getting plenty of sympathy for being caught up in this shit, although it generally seems to come with a big dollop of unspoken
I-told-you-so
. And she deserves it.

“Hi, Trev,” she says as a bald man in his fifties appears at the service counter, wiping his hands on blue overalls.

“What can I do you for, sweetheart?”

She moves across, leans on the counter, hating herself. She’s known Trevor since she joined the force at eighteen. Evidence manager, civilian. Two kids at university. Now she’s going to lie to him and hope he’ll lie for her. Nice one, Den…

“Can’t get it out of my mind,” she says, nodding at the car behind him.

“Understandable,” he says. “Not your fault, though, is it?”

“I was called out on it. That’s the weird thing. I should be working the case, not sitting on my arse in here.”

“Nothing you can do about that, love. Why go blaming yourself?”

“Trev, do you think I could have a quick at the evidence report? It’s probably nothing, just something I saw yesterday morning when I got there. It’s been in the back of my mind.”

His head tilts to one side.

“Not really, love.”

“It’s personal,” she says, disgusted at herself.

He gives her an
I-told-you-so
look, same as everyone else, and goes to fetch the log book.

“Tell me what you want to know,” he says, opening the book and laying it on the counter.

“The boot. Was it forced?”

As he runs a finger down the page, she finds the mileage, reads upside down. It’s on the top of the report, next to the chassis number.

“Nope,” he says, immediately closing the book.

“I thought it was,” she says. “Couldn’t understand why no one was mentioning it.”

“No one should be mentioning anything.”

“Yeah, right. Been in the cafeteria lately?”

“Gossip central, they should call it,” he says, his hand flat on the closed log book.

“It was just…”

“Don’t you worry. Must be a million things going through your head at the moment. There’s no law against you coming down here for a chat.”

“Thanks, Trev.”

As she makes her way back up the stairs, the disgust is replaced by a dull sense of shame. But it recedes quickly, leaving an emptiness where the guilt should be. Also, at the back of her mind there’s a thought: how easy it had been, lying to a colleague. Would she do it again?

Yes
, she tells herself as she finds her way out into the cool evening.
For John I probably would
.

A
nother car showroom built of glass and steel.
Scholes BMW.
But this is the real thing. Huge frontage, cars inside and out, new and used. Must be seventy motors on show, easy. Plumb on the ring road. Prime location.

The competition
, John tells himself with a smile.

He sees his man through the glass.

David Adger. Suit drab but smart, white shirt, inoffensive tie. The clincher, though, is his face, something homely about it, pudgy, believable. It’s a whole different shtick from Freddy’s, but the result is the same; put the customer at ease and the motor sells itself.

“John Ray!”

Adger strides towards the door and offers a handshake twice as powerful as the wimp-wristed one he uses on prospective customers.

“I need a favour,” John says. “Why don’t you show me some wheels?”

Adger is straight out the door, leading John around the side of the building where the secondhand models are lined up. They walk slowly down the row of spruced up beemers, looking at them as they talk.

“Adrian Fuller. Know the name?”

“Remind me.”

“Manager of a hotel up on the York Road. Bought a silver Series 3 off you a while back.”

“Late thirties? Never had a decent car before?”

“How d’you know that?”

They keep walking. “He asked about servicing costs, tyre prices, whether you have to replace airbags. The whole thing. You know the kind, a twenty grand beemer is like their Rolls Royce. They come into some money, and they want their little dream boat. But they want to get it right. Tell ’em a mile off.”

“Is that what he paid?”

Adger stops. Rubs his chin.

“That’s confidential. I can’t just start…”

“It might help get Freddy off a charge for murder. A murder I’m pretty sure he didn’t do.”

“I heard about that. What’s the latest?”

“News is he’s still being held, and he’s heading for a charge. They don’t know everything though.”

“And you do?” Adger says, stopping to admire a black M5 that’s been waxed to a high shine but is still showing its age.

They stop and examine the car.

“Something like that. But I need to know about Fuller’s new motor.”

Adger shakes his head. “If he finds out where you got the info and makes a complaint, I get the sack. Nah, I’m on a good thing here.”

“He won’t.” John gets himself a cigarette. “You want one?”

“I quit.”

John lights up anyway.

“Look, they’ll be onto Fuller soon enough. The murdered girl? There was money involved. Lots of it. They’re gonna be looking at Fuller’s bank account, his car, everything. Believe me, there’ll be blue uniforms buzzing around here like flies on shit if I can’t sort all this out.”

“And how d’you plan to do that?”

John takes a long drag. “I only want to know how much he spent, when, and how. There’s a couple of grand for your trouble.”

Adger continues to pay attention to the front of the M5.

“That’s it?” he says, twisting his neck far enough to see that there’s nobody else out on this side of the building. “What do I tell the coppers if they come around?”

“Tell ’em the truth. Just don’t mention me.”

“So it’s just a head start you want?”

“Precisely.”

For a second or two he stops pretending to sell cars.

“Four.”

“Three’s all I’ve got on me, mate.”

Adger nods.

“I don’t get it though. How can it help Freddy? I mean…”

“It’s complicated. Let’s leave it at that.”

John extends his hand, palm downwards.

“Ring me in five,” Adger says, and makes his way back inside to consult the sales log, the three thousand safely in his pocket.

A hundred yards down the ring road John pulls in and waits. He watches the traffic go by, the Saab taking a sudden battering of wind from each vehicle as it races past just feet away. And he imagines the red Mondeo driving down here, Fedir peering ahead into the night, looking for a dark corner of the city to abandon the car. Dump it, then away. Ten hours and he’d’ve been out of the country. They’re never gonna see Fedir again.

“Fuller,” says Adger in a lowish voice. “Motor was going for twenty-two. He haggled pretty good. I took nineteen four fifty. Cash.”

“You sure it was cash?”

“Yes. Fortnight ago.”

“And the money, was it okay?”

“What do you mean?”

“Was there any problems with it?”

“Never heard anything. Got my commission.”

“Right. Thanks, Dave.”

“See you around.”

Not if I see you first, greedy bastard.

W
hen he arrives at the showroom the lights are on, and even from outside he can hear that
Radiohead
is playing a little too loudly.

“Sorry,” Connie shouts as the automatic door slides open and he walks in. She turns the music down, but not off.

“After the day I’ve had,” he says, throwing his jacket on the roof of a black Audi, “I don’t care.”

He looks at his watch.

“Hold on. It’s half past six. Why are you still here? Come to think of it, it’s Sunday. You don’t work Sundays.”

“I decided to come in and clean up a bit, stock the fridge, y’know. You did that, did you?” she says, pointing at the red Audi with an uneven stub of glass in place of a passenger door window.

“I’m afraid so,” he says, noticing that there is now no glass on the floor.

“Then,” she says, as if the broken window is immediately forgotten, “I thought, why not? I’ll open!”

“Sell anything?”

“Nearly. The silver Astra out back? They offered two-four.”

“What’s it going for, three grand? You should’ve sold it.”

“Really? What kind of margins are you working on?”

“Who gives a shit?” he says. “This place has a bottom line of break even. Or haven’t you noticed?”

She had noticed.

He immediately regrets saying it.

She notices that too.

He goes over to the tiny office at the back of the showroom and slumps down into the chair behind the desk.

“You know,” she says, standing in the doorway, hands on hips, “you should put a picture of a yacht in here, not a car.”

He twists around. On the wall behind him is a photo of a blue and yellow Subaru.

“What, remind customers of what they’ll never have? Nah.”

“It’s funny,” she says. “Every man in my family, his dream is a yacht.”

“Any of them manage it?”

“Yes. One or two.”

“Perhaps I’ll be the third.”

Her mouth wrinkles as if suppressing a smile. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you already had one.”

“Well I don’t. But I will, one day.”

Although that day is suddenly looking a long way off…

“Is Freddy still at the station?” she asks.

“Yes. They’ve extended his detention.”

“And is it, how do you say…”

“Looking bad for him?”

“U-hu.”

“Well, I don’t think he’ll be coming out unless the real killer turns up.”

“Mmm,” she says, weighing up the news. “The tapes? Freddy taking the car on Thursday evening? What shall we do with them?”

“Where are they now?”

“In my flat.”

John blows through his lips. “They already know he took the car on Thursday. Freddy told ’em.”

“The tapes, you give them to the police?”

He fiddles with a pen on the desk. When he looks up she’s still there, hands on hips, and he can tell she hasn’t finished.

“There’s the whole week on tape,” she says. “All day, all night. Well,
almost
all day.”

It feels like an interrogation. He says nothing. This must have been how it was for his dad, hour after hour, all those police interviews, and saying absolutely nothing. He’s about to tell Connie that she’d make a good a detective, but she goes on:

“Freddy takes the car on Thursday at eight, brings it back at eleven. Is that what he’s telling them?”

“I guess. But is it
true
?”

“Yes. I saw the tape.”

“No,” John says, “I meant about Donna. Freddy told the police he was with Donna on Thursday evening. They drove to a lay-by up near Wetherby and had sex on the back seat.”

“Why would he lie about that? Anyway, where’s Wetherby?”

“About twenty minutes north of here.”

“Does he have family there?”

John shakes his head. “Mum’s dead and his dad disappeared when he was a baby. I’m the closest thing to family he’s got. Poor kid.”

He puts his elbows on the desk and rests his chin on his knuckles. “Sex in the car? Were they avoiding Fedir?” he says. “Donna was Fedir’s personal property, apparently. So if she and Freddy were going behind Fedir’s back…”

“They drive to, what’s it called, Wetherby?”

“I dunno,” she says. “Who goes to Wetherby for sex?”

He starts to laugh.

But then he stops.

“The racing,” he whispers, as if the revelation will astound her. “Jumpers, ehm… national hunt, y’know… horses! It’s a racetrack. He goes there all the time. That’s why he said it. First place that came into his head. He never went to Wetherby…”

“So he’s covering something up?”

“Yeah, I reckon. But what?”

“He takes the car two nights in a row,” Connie says, “but the second night, not til midnight.”

“Just before they dumped Donna into the boot.”

He checks his iPhone. There’s a message. Must have arrived when he was driving. Caller unrecognised. She’s using a second phone or a new sim card. Because it’s definitely from Den.

The message reads:
87,367
.

Nothing else.

The mileage on the Mondeo.

“Right,” he says. “The car’s done about a hundred and sixty miles more than when I bought it. But on the Friday it only goes from here to the hotel, then it’s abandoned somewhere close to town. You don’t drive around half the night with a dead body in the boot. You get rid as quick as you can.”

“So, Freddy drove a hundred and sixty miles on Thursday night?”

“Seems about right. Hundred and fifty… sixty. In three hours, including, y’know, getting together with Donna on the back seat.”

He sits back, hands behind his head.

“Look more closely at that Subaru,” he says, beginning to smile.

“What?”

“Go on. See anything strange about it?”

She squeezes into the office and leans across the desk. The heat of her body and the distant aroma of Chanel’s
Coco
are impossible to ignore.

“It’s a
model
?” she says, confused.

“Yep. They retail at thirty quid. Scale models.”