Killer Plan (27 page)

72

Brian had been gone
for ages and ages. Ed didn’t understand why he had stayed away for so long. He guessed Brian was punishing him for wanting to go home. It reminded him of how his father used to send him to his room when he misbehaved, except that there had been a light in his room, and he could play on his Xbox to pass the time. Not only that, he could have opened the door and gone out onto the landing at any time, if he had dared. He might have ended up in even worse trouble with his father, but at least his father had never locked him in his room. Thinking about his father made him want to cry. It was even worse when he thought about his brother. He missed Matt more than anything. They had never been separated before. He felt as though he had lost a part of himself. He couldn’t help missing his mother as well. The thought of her made him want to cry all over again, but he managed to restrain himself.

He had cried so much lately, his head hurt and his eyes were sore. If he cried any more he was afraid he would damage his eyes. He might already have gone blind. He switched the torch on and turned it off again almost straight away. If the battery failed, he would be completely helpless. There was nothing to see down there anyway, just the bed and the stairs, and the foul bucket that made the place stink worse than the toilets at school. The smell made him feel sick. His mother always nagged him and Matt to wash their hands after going to the toilet. For once, he wished he could.

He lay perfectly still on his bunk, thinking. His supply of food was nearly all gone, so Brian would have to come back soon. Brian might be mean, but he wouldn’t leave him there to starve. He had taken him to the seaside, and was protecting him from bad people who had killed his father. Brian was his friend. Yet he had locked him in the cellar. That was a very mean thing to do. It was very confusing. One thing was certain, it was horrible being shut up in the dark. He couldn’t stay there much longer. It would drive him nuts. Rather than stay locked up in the dark he was prepared to take his chances out on the street. He would just have to hope his enemies didn’t find him before he found his way home to his mother. Meanwhile, he had to think of an escape plan.

Switching on the torch he climbed cautiously up the stairs and examined the door. It had no handle, and no keyhole. Gripping the torch in his left hand, he placed his right hand flat against the smooth surface of the door. He pushed gently at first, then with sudden force. The door didn’t budge. He put the torch down very carefully at his feet and gave the door a shove with the heels of both hands. Still it didn’t move. He tried again and again. He was crying now. With sudden rage he kicked the door with one foot and only managed to jar his ankle painfully. Next he tried putting his shoulder against the door and pushing. Although he knew it was futile, he had to try everything. The door didn’t even quiver.

Even though he hadn’t expected the door to open, he was bitterly disappointed. He was no more trapped than he had been a moment before, but he had been clinging to a desperate optimism. Now even that glimmer of hope had gone. The cellar was like a cupboard. Once the door was shut, it couldn’t be opened from the inside. He might as well be locked in a prison cell. But two could play at that game. Slowly a plan began to take shape in his mind. The next time Brian opened the door, Ed would be waiting for him at the top of the stairs. He would trip Brian and send him hurtling down the steps. As he fell, Ed would dash out and slam the door behind him, leaving Brian in the cellar. See how
he
liked being locked up in the dark. It would serve him right. After that all Ed had to do was find a phone and call 999. It was so simple. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it before.

By the light of the torch he studied the narrow area in which he was confined. There were some empty wooden crates stacked in one corner. Next to them was the stinking bucket, and beside that some boxes of cereal Brian had left for him. To begin with Ed had enjoyed scoffing handfuls of dry coco pops and sugar puffs, but after a while their sweetness made him feel sick. The rolls Brian had left him were too stale to bite into, and he had finished the store of cheese and apples. There were several large bottles of lemonade left, but he was sick of drinking it. He had to force himself to swallow the sugary liquid.

His watch said ten o’clock, but he didn’t know if it was ten in the morning or ten in the evening. He felt as though he had been there all his life. All he could do was cling to his plan. There was nothing else he could do. Reluctantly he switched off the torch and settled down to wait.

73

At first Caroline had
resisted the suggestion that they film a reconstruction of Ed’s last known movements. No one in Morrisons could recall whether Ed had arrived at the shop on the day he disappeared, and one of the CCTV cameras in the shop wasn’t working, so that was inconclusive. Reg was keen to broadcast an image of him walking along The Ridgeway, crossing at the lights, going into the local Morrisons, and returning home again. With an identical twin, it would be easy to recreate the scene. Reg did his best to convince Caroline this was the best way of seeking to establish Ed’s whereabouts. She was reluctant to go along with the suggestion, which would see Matthew retracing his brother’s last known footsteps. At last she caved in. If filming Matthew might help rescue Ed, they had to go ahead.

‘You don’t have to do this,’ Geraldine told Matthew. He stared at her, white-faced. ‘We can find another boy who looks like Ed.’

‘I’m the only one who looks like him.’

‘Of course you are, but we can find another boy who looks similar, if you don’t want to do this.’

‘If it helps get Ed back, then I want to do it,’ he insisted, his face rigid with determination.

During the filming Geraldine watched Caroline tremble as her son appeared around the corner. Matthew’s face was unnaturally pale in the bright lights. He looked very small and very frightened. Holding himself upright, he marched like an automaton, his arms swinging stiffly. His eyes swept across the spectators, pausing only when he saw his mother, who let out a low moan. As he marched past, one of her hands jerked forward in an involuntary movement. It wasn’t clear which of her sons she was reaching out for. As soon as the filming finished, she bent over, as though doubled up in physical pain. Matthew went and stood beside her, scuffing the ground with the toe of one shoe. After a moment, he reached out and patted her awkwardly on the arm.

‘You can stop crying now, mum,’ he said. ‘We’ve done it, so they’ll bring Ed home soon.’

The broadcast provoked a flurry of phone calls. More people claimed to remember seeing Ed on the day he disappeared than could possibly have been on that street that day. Several callers claimed to have seen the boy being bundled into cars of different makes and colours, but no one had thought to record the registration number. There were conflicting descriptions of men and women allegedly dragging the boy off the street. After a few hours the calls tailed off. They had resulted in no useful leads.

Geraldine wasn’t sure what to do next. The investigation seemed to have reached an impasse. They were sitting around waiting for further results from forensic tests of fibres and fabrics, analysis of scenes of crimes and reports on CCTV. Hours and hours of film had been closely scrutinised. Rob’s blue van had been sighted driving along Ballards Lane, close to where Caroline and Brian lived, but not all the traffic cameras were working, so they could only establish its presence in the area. It couldn’t be placed at any specific address at the time Rob was killed.

‘What’s the use of all these fucking cameras when they don’t bloody work,’ Reg fumed.

Halfway through the morning Reg summoned Geraldine to his office where he warned her off questioning Eve again.

‘You upset her,’ he said heavily, gesturing to Geraldine to take a seat. ‘Keep away from her from now on. Unless you come up with some real evidence, you have to drop this. She’s threatening to make a formal complaint against you for harassment. She doesn’t need this right now, Geraldine, and nor do you, and frankly, nor do I.’

Geraldine couldn’t argue with him. He was right. She didn’t have any evidence to substantiate her suspicions of Eve. With no other leads, Geraldine took Max with her to speak to Caroline. After that they were going to question Rob’s father again to see if he could shed any light on the connection between his son and the twins. The missing boy was the priority right now.

Caroline didn’t look surprised to see Geraldine and her sergeant again so soon. She didn’t recognise Robert Wright’s name.

‘He’s been murdered, and we think he may have known one or both of your sons.’

Caroline shook her head, her expression blank.

‘We discovered a few flecks of your son’s dandruff on Robert Wright’s body suggesting they were in the same room at some point. That doesn’t mean your son was in contact with the dead man
after
his death, of course,’ she added untruthfully. ‘Are you sure you don’t know Robert Wright? That’s Wright with a W.’

Staring at the photograph Geraldine had shown her, Caroline shook her head. ‘It doesn’t ring a bell. I told you Brian’s taken Ed. Please, you have to find him. I went round there,’ she went on, suddenly animated. ‘He wouldn’t let me in, but you could get in. You can go anywhere, can’t you?’

‘You told me you didn’t know where he lives.’

Fighting back tears, Caroline described how she had followed Geraldine to Brian’s house.

‘Ed’s there. I know he is! He has to be!’

Leaving Caroline, they went to question Rob’s father. He said he had never heard of Caroline or her sons.

‘Rob knew all sorts of people,’ he added unhelpfully.

Having investigated Eve as far as she was able, Geraldine turned her attention to Brian. Looking further into his background, she discovered that his dead wife had a sister living in Milton Keynes, a woman called Mary Drysdale. Family members could prove a useful source of information, so she decided to talk to the woman face to face. It was an excuse to get out of the office, and away from Nick’s empty desk. Sometimes a change of scene helped her to think.

Mary Drysdale was a thin woman with greying blonde hair and a sharp-featured face. At first she seemed reluctant to speak to Geraldine.

‘I know I agreed to meet you, but there’s really nothing I can tell you about my brother-in-law. I haven’t seen him for years.’

‘What did you think of him? Anything you can tell me about him might be helpful.’

‘But you can’t tell me why you want to know?’

‘I’m sorry. But please…’

‘Well,’ Mary said, appearing to relent, ‘to be honest I hardly ever met him, but I never liked him. And if you’re asking about him because you’re reopening the investigation into Susan’s death, I still don’t believe it was suicide, whatever they said at the time. It wasn’t like her at all. I knew my sister, Inspector. She loved life. What she ever saw in that Brian…’ She pulled a face. ‘It was bad timing. She was on the rebound when she met him. She’d been seeing a married man, poor cow. When that all went wrong, she settled for Brian, far too quickly. I knew it was a mistake. I think she did too, deep down. Anyway, she took up with Nick again, and then suddenly she was dead. It didn’t make sense. Why would she have gone and killed herself?’

Mary was clearly still distressed by the loss of her sister, but Geraldine’s attention had been caught by something else.

‘Nick?’

‘Yes. That’s the man she was seeing, before she met Brian. He was messing her around, telling her he’d leave his wife, and then letting her down. More fool her for letting him. You know the story, it’s hardly original, but he was breaking her heart. That’s the only reason she married Brian, she said she wanted someone safe, someone who would always put her first. Only then it all started up again with Nick…’

‘What was his other name?’

‘Who?’

‘Nick. The man she was seeing. The married man. What was his surname?’

Mary shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Think, please. This could be very important.’

But Geraldine already knew the identity of the married man who had been in a relationship with Brian’s dead wife. He was the missing link that connected the murder of her colleague to the murder of Caroline’s husband, and to Rob the odd-job man who had somehow become caught up in the spiral of killings.

‘Was it Williams?’

Recognition registered in Mary’s face. ‘Nick Williams, that was it. Susan told me he worked for the Metropolitan Police.’

By the time Geraldine reached London, her reservations about Brian had grown into a firm conviction that he was involved. She would have waited until the morning to follow it up, but concern for the missing boy lent urgency to her actions. If Caroline was right, Brian was keeping Ed captive. Although hard to believe, it was possible. And if Geraldine’s hunch was correct, Brian was capable of murder as well as kidnap. Meeting Brian’s former sister-in-law had crystallised her thoughts. There was no time to lose. Ed’s life might be in danger.

74

People were milling around,
watching the departures board, or striding purposefully towards the platforms, dragging cases behind them. Brian’s train wasn’t due for another twenty minutes. He perched on the end of a bench, head lowered, one hand resting on his suitcase, waiting. Gazing around through dark lenses, he couldn’t spot any security cameras in that corner of the station. He had selected Scotland as his destination, having once seen a film of
The Thirty Nine Steps
in which the hero had evaded capture by moving around remote places in the Highlands. He fancied he could do the same. He wasn’t travelling straight there. Instead he would start his journey by going west. At the counter he used his credit card to buy a ticket to Oxford. By the time the police were on his trail he would have arrived in Oxford and bought an overnight ticket to Inverness, making a cash purchase that would be difficult to trace.

There was an airport at Inverness. From there it must be possible to leave the country. It would involve taking a bus to the airport, or another train, or maybe both. He might hire a car if he could do so without disclosing his identity. Perhaps it would be best to ‘borrow’ a car, without the owner’s permission, of course. That way he would be able to travel without leaving any tracks, at least until the owner of the vehicle reported it missing. He could fly straight to Europe from Inverness, and stay overseas until he was no longer in the news and the police lost interest in him. He could quite happily spend years renting a room on the coast somewhere sunny, biding his time. He would be in no hurry to return to England. He might never come back. When his money ran out he could get a job, working in a bar, or teaching English.

He was going to leave the UK before the police came back and searched his house. It was a pity that by the time they discovered the boy it would probably be too late to save his life, but there was nothing Brian could do about it now. It was all for the best really, because if he
had
been found alive, the boy would have been able to tell the police how a man had fallen to his death in Brian’s back garden. They couldn’t prove Brian had deliberately caused the man’s death, but the boy could describe how they had heaved the body into the van, and how Brian had driven it away. It was a pretty damning account.

His platform came up, and he walked quickly to the turnstile, taking care not to jostle anyone, or do anything that might draw attention to himself. He was an unremarkable man embarking on an unremarkable journey. When two British Transport Police passed him, he didn’t flinch. One of them glanced at him as he walked by, trailing his case behind him. He lowered his eyes and hurried on, like any other traveller. The train was busy. He found a seat near a luggage rack, sat down and buried his face in a free newspaper he had picked up on the underground. There wasn’t much room, but he extended his legs as far as he could, arching his back and rotating his head gently. For the first time he wondered how the boy was feeling, cooped up in his cellar. Dismissing the thought, he turned to look out of the window at the countryside flashing past.

Thinking about leaving the country, and wondering where to go, he reached for his leather bag. The strap on his shoulder wasn’t there. With a sick feeling he realised what he had done. In his rush to get away, he had left the bag on his bed at home. He could picture it lying there, the black strap snaking across his pillow. There was nothing else for it. He had to go back and get it. He would slip round the back of the house under cover of darkness. Leaving his suitcase concealed behind the low wall of his narrow front garden, he would race upstairs to the bedroom, and be out of there again before anyone saw him. It was going be dangerous, because the police were bound to be watching the house, but he would manage it. He had no choice. Without his passport he was stuffed.

Heaving his suitcase off the train at the next stop, he made his way across to the opposite platform where he waited for a train to take him back to London and the quiet house where his documents lay, all ready, packed into a leather bag. He had been an idiot to leave them behind, but there was no point in getting worked up about it. Now more than ever he needed to keep a clear head. The worst was happening, and he had done it to himself, but there was still time to retrieve the situation.

‘Failure is not an option,’ he muttered furiously to himself. He kept his head down, afraid that an inquisitive official might notice he had arrived at the station only to turn round immediately and return to London. He wished he had gone to sit in the waiting room, out of sight, although there were probably cameras in there. CCTV cameras were everywhere on the train lines. It had probably been a blunder, travelling by train, but it hadn’t occurred to him that he would have to go back to London. He should have been in Oxford by now, buying his ticket to Inverness.

At last his train was announced and he clambered aboard, lugging his suitcase which seemed to be much heavier than it had been when he left home. He was tired, and his arms were aching. He was tempted to unpack some of his clothes and leave them behind on the train. He didn’t need them. But there were other people in the carriage and he was wary of attracting attention. So far no one seemed to have noticed him, sitting quietly behind a newspaper. With a twinge of fear, he saw a train guard coming down the aisle towards him. He didn’t have a ticket for the return journey back to London. His carefully planned day was fast degenerating into a nightmare. With one swift movement he was on his feet, walking away from the guard. He kept going until he reached a toilet. It stank in there, but he stayed crouching on the seat with the lid down, until he heard an announcement over the tannoy. They were approaching the London terminal.

No one even glanced at him lugging his case off the train.

‘I seem to have lost my ticket,’ he muttered to the station official at the barrier. ‘Can you let me through please?’

He didn’t suppose any of the station staff would remember him, and the police would hardly be expecting him to be returning to London from Oxford.

The barrier guard didn’t even look at him. ‘Go to the excess fares counter over there. You’ll have to pay the maximum fare.’

The ticket was a rip off but he didn’t protest, and was soon hurrying down to the underground. The nearer to home he was, the more anxious he became. He could feel his shirt clammy with sweat beneath his overcoat, and his head began to hurt. He was probably dehydrated, but he didn’t stop to buy a bottle of water. Shops all had CCTV, and the police were bound to be looking out for him this close to home. Carefully he turned his head away from the cameras in the station, pulling his coat collar up to his chin.

It was the obvious place to wait, in the park across the road. At last the sun set and darkness swallowed the empty expanse of grass. It was just past nine o’clock when he rose to his feet and stole silently along the pavement towards his house. The street was deserted. No one knew he was there. This might be easier than he had expected. All he had to do was run upstairs, grab his bag, and leave. He wouldn’t so much as look at the door under the stairs. He just wanted to slip away quietly. He hoped the boy would do the same.