No Place to Die (33 page)

‘Yeah,’ a female voice said.

‘Hi, Cindy. It’s DI Lockyer. How’s it going?’

‘Who?’

‘DI Lockyer,’ he said, resting his forehead on his free hand. ‘I was over on Saturday with my colleague, DS Bennett, talking to Gary. Remember?’

‘Oh, right, yeah. You’re that tall copper,’ she said, her words slurring into one another. ‘Crazy hair.’

Lockyer couldn’t help smoothing his hair down. ‘That’s right. Can I have a word with Gary, please?’

‘Not here,’ Cindy said. She sounded as if she was about to pass out.

‘When will he be back?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said, sniffing. ‘We went out Saturday after you were here. Haven’t seen him since.’

Lockyer sat up straight in his chair. ‘What do you mean? Where’s he gone?’

‘How should I know?’ Cindy said, sniffing again. Lockyer realized she was crying. ‘He just walked out of the pub and didn’t come back. Guess he was sick of me. My mum said he’d get bored. I figured if I came back here, he’d come home eventually and we’d make up, you know?’ Lockyer didn’t say anything. Something about this didn’t feel right. ‘I don’t have any money. I can’t go back to my folks. They don’t want me. He was the only one . . . Gary was the only one who ever wanted me.’ She was sobbing down the phone.

‘All right, Cindy.’ What could he say? He couldn’t very well say that he thought Gary leaving her was probably the best thing for all concerned. ‘Look, I’m sorry, but I need to find Gary. Do you have any idea where he might have gone?’

‘No,’ Cindy shouted. ‘If I did, I wouldn’t be sitting here waiting for him, would I?’

‘Listen, I need you to get him to call me as soon as he comes back. Okay?’

‘If he comes back,’ she said.

‘Call your mum, Cindy,’ Lockyer said, feeling useless and guilty. ‘I would want my daughter to call me if she was in trouble, no matter what had happened.’

Cindy sniffed again. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I’ve gotta go. I need some bog-roll.’ She hung up before Lockyer could say any more.

‘Nice chatting with you,’ he said, dropping his mobile onto his desk.

He looked at his watch. He had texted Jane twice with updates on the search, but hadn’t heard back yet. Air Support had been called in, but so far there was no sign of Lebowski’s car. With a few clicks he opened his address book on his computer. He scrolled through until he came to Sue and Mark’s details. The home number was listed. He dialled and waited.

‘Hello,’ Sue said.

‘Hi, Sue. It’s Mike,’ he said, leaning back in his chair. ‘Sorry to bother you, but could I have a quick word with Jane, please?’

A brief silence greeted his question.

‘She’s not here, Mike,’ Sue said. He could hear papers shuffling at the end of the line. ‘I had a text from her a little while ago saying she was coming over. She must be stuck in traffic.’

‘What time did she text you?’ he asked. Jane had told him she wasn’t going to tell Sue she was coming; that she didn’t want to give Sue time to prepare. So why would she text Sue?

‘Hang on,’ Sue said. He heard the papers being moved. ‘It was only fifteen minutes ago. She said she was on her way.’ Lockyer looked at his watch. Jane had left the office well over an hour ago. ‘She didn’t say why she wanted to speak to me. Is it Mark?’

‘No, Sue. I’m sorry. Jane just needed to ask you some questions about a guy we’ve been talking to on the Hungerford case. There’s a possible connection.’

‘Is Lebowski a suspect?’

Lockyer paused, unsure whether to continue. ‘You know him?’ he asked.

‘I know of him, yes,’ Sue said. ‘Jane asked me about him last week.’ There was a silence at Sue’s end. Lockyer held his breath. ‘I didn’t tell her . . . I didn’t think it was relevant. Mark was . . . ’ She stopped speaking.

‘We know about the phone calls, Sue,’ he said, looking around his desk for his notepad.

‘Oh God,’ she said, her voice muffled. He pictured her covering her mouth with her hand, hoping to stop the words. ‘Who else knows?’

‘Only a select few,’ he said, not wanting to lie to her, but not wanting to subject her to any more anguish, either. Jane had managed to keep the bulk of the information from the team, but that couldn’t last. Roger knew and so would the higher-ups. It was only a matter of time before it drifted into general circulation.

‘Mike, I swear I didn’t know anything about it until I checked the phone bill. When I confronted him, he broke down . . . He cried, Mike. I’ve never seen him cry, except when the boys were born. He was distraught. He felt like it was his fault.’

‘Like what was his fault?’

‘Amelia’s murder. He tried everything, but nothing would stick. He told everyone – his SIO, the chief, everyone – but no one else believed Lebowski was guilty.’

‘Why was Mark so sure that Lebowski killed Amelia?’

‘I wish I could tell you,’ Sue said. ‘He wouldn’t talk to me about it, not really. He interviewed Lebowski again and again and just said he knew, from the way the guy acted, that he’d done it – like he was showboating, hoping they would catch him.’

‘What else did Mark say about the phone calls?’ Lockyer asked.

‘He said he owed it to Gary . . . Amelia’s father. Gary and Liz were our friends. Their marriage went down the pan not long after Mark retired. Gary couldn’t handle not knowing.’

‘Did Mark tell Gary about Lebowski?’ He knew he was taking a risk asking Sue the question. If anything was going to make her clam up, it was incriminating her missing husband, but her silence answered the question for her. ‘When?’ he asked.

‘He didn’t feel like he had a choice. Gary started drinking. He wasn’t the same man we had known. He called all the time, made threats, came round. He even started a fight with Mark in the pub. It was awful to see him lose it like that. Gary said Mark had promised him he would get whoever killed Amelia. He said Mark’s retirement was an excuse to cover up his own incompetence; that he was as guilty as the man who had killed Amelia. Mark was crushed.’ Lockyer could hear Sue trying to control her voice, trying to stop herself from breaking down.

‘Why didn’t you call me? Or Jane?’

‘How could I, Mike?’ she said, sniffing. ‘You would have had to intervene. There’s no way you could have just swept that kind of information under the carpet. He’s my husband, Mike. I’d do anything for him, to protect our family. Mark thought if he told Gary that he knew who was responsible and that he hadn’t forgotten Amelia, it would give Gary some kind of closure.’

‘But it didn’t,’ Lockyer said, unable to believe that Mark could have been so short-sighted.

‘No. If anything, it made Gary worse. He came to the house. He was drunk. He threatened Mark, said he would hurt me and the boys if Mark didn’t tell him who had killed his daughter.’

Lockyer felt as if someone had just walked over his grave. The Gary Reynolds that Sue was describing was not the man he and Jane had met on Saturday. He tried to piece together what it could mean. Lebowski was on the run with his two children. There was a warrant for his arrest in connection with the murders of Amelia Reynolds, Kieran Affiku, Maggie Hungerford and Mark Leech. Now Gary Reynolds had gone AWOL. Lockyer needed to speak to Jane. Now.

5th May – Monday

Jane touched the back of her head with the tips of her fingers. They came away wet. There was a throbbing pain behind her right eye. A memory floated around her consciousness: a noise, then nothing. She took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of water and soil mixed together by the rain. She opened her eyes. The blackness that greeted her pupils jolted her out of her stupor. She sat up, her head connecting with a solid surface. The impact turned her stomach. She vomited between her legs. ‘No,’ she groaned. ‘Please, no.’ She coughed and retched again as the pain in her head increased. Her throat burned as she hung her head between her knees. She pictured Peter in her mind, sitting in the garden, his face upturned to the sun, a small smile on his face. Her heart rate slowed. She held onto his image and started to shake her head. Neither Lebowski nor her own panic would prevent her getting home to her son. She would fight until her last breath.

She resisted the desire to move, to scrabble to freedom. Instead she waited, counting each breath, each beat of her heart, until she was calm. She remembered climbing down into Maggie’s tomb: the moment the lights had been turned off, to allow her to imagine how it must have been to wake up in such a place. She realized now that her imaginings hadn’t even come close. The blackness, the smell, the cold, the feel of the frigid earth beneath her fingers and the silence – each element pushed her mind towards madness, towards losing control. She felt it like warm hands on her cold skin. It was as if the tomb wanted to possess her, to absorb her into the earth. ‘No,’ she said, shaking her head again, dislodging the thoughts before they could take hold. ‘Peter.’ Just hearing his name calmed her mind. ‘Peter,’ she said again, turning until she was on all fours. She pictured Maggie’s tomb in her mind and then Kieran’s. The hatch had been in the top right-hand corner of both. She almost laughed. There was no way to tell where in the tomb she was: which end, which side, anything. Like Maggie and Kieran before her, she would have to feel her way.

With slow, deliberate movements she reached down and patted her pockets and the earth around her. She felt something in her left pocket. Her keys? It seemed to take an eternity to navigate the material of her trousers and find the opening. She pulled them out, her hand closing around the gift her mother had given her. ‘Thank you, Mum,’ she whispered. She twisted the end of the miniature torch and a thin beam of blue light appeared under her fingers. As relief washed over her, she thought again about Maggie and Kieran. She felt tears welling up in her eyes. She held the torch to her chest, closed her eyes and said a silent prayer. If she got out, if she escaped, maybe somehow a part of them would too. She allowed herself to cry for a moment, but then swallowed her emotions and looked around her. The beam of light was small, but she moved it over the ceiling ahead of her. Nothing. She turned, her head throbbing, and looked behind her. The light changed as it moved over something. Was it the hatch? She tried to focus. Her heart seemed to stop in her chest as the light flickered for a moment, fading to nothing before springing back to life. ‘No way,’ she said, pushing her body to move. She was getting out of here right now.

As she moved towards the hatch, her light settled on something beneath it. It was a body. A man. Her head was screaming. Mark. She retched again and again, but there was no more liquid in her stomach. She leaned over his body and shone her light onto his face. There was a lot of blood. She listened. He was breathing. She leaned further over, resting her hand on his chest. There was a deep wound over his left eye. Her head pounded. It wasn’t Mark. She was looking at the bloodied face of Lebowski. ‘Victor,’ she said, shaking him, his head lolling backwards, limp. She looked up at the hatch. He was directly beneath it. With a strength she didn’t know she possessed, she managed to push him out of the way. Her keys and the torch were wedged between her teeth, the metal tasting sour against her tongue.

She turned and lay down. With both hands flat, she pushed upwards, the floor hard and cold against her back. It didn’t budge. She pictured the earth on the other side of it, weighing it down. If she managed to break it open, would she be able to dig her way out? ‘You bet your life I will,’ she mumbled to herself. She glanced at Victor and listened. He was still breathing. Where were his daughters? She lay back again and brought her legs up, until her feet were resting against the hatch. There wasn’t much room, but she pumped her legs and kicked as hard as she could with her heels. The contact made her head spin. She rested her head on one side as she retched, but she didn’t stop. She pumped her legs and kicked again. And again. Spatters of earth fell onto her face.

Without warning she was plunged into darkness. She reached for the torch and twisted it back and forth, but nothing happened. ‘Oh God, no.’ She could stand anything – anything but the darkness. Her breath caught in her throat; her lungs seemed to freeze. She opened her mouth, but couldn’t get any air. Her pulse hammered inside her skull. ‘No,’ she whispered. She couldn’t give up now.

She lifted her legs again and kicked with every ounce of her strength. She would not stop. With each kick she willed the hatch to break, but fear was holding her back, weakening the impact. She was terrified a landslide of mud would rush in and suffocate her. ‘Come on,’ she said, angry with herself now. She pushed the thought away and kicked again. A loud crack echoed around the tomb. She screamed and pummelled the door with one foot, then the other, over and over again until she was kicking at nothing. Exhausted, she let her head fall back into the deep bed of soil surrounding her. She blinked her eyes, shaking the dirt away, holding her hands over her face. Her breath hitched in her throat. She could see her hands, her fingers. There was light. It was faint and delicate, but it was there. ‘Thank God,’ she said, letting the moonlight wash over her face.

5th May – Monday

Lockyer took off his jacket and threw it over the back of his chair. He had been trying to get hold of Jane for over an hour. It was past ten o’clock. There was no sign of Victor Lebowski or Gary Reynolds, and now Jane was missing. He looked up as Chris was passing by his office door. ‘Chris,’ he called after him.

‘Yes, boss,’ Chris said, poking his head around the edge of the glass door to Lockyer’s office.

‘When was the last time you spoke to, or heard from, DS Bennett?’

‘I haven’t spoken to her since she left the office, boss,’ he said, looking over his shoulder at the clock mounted on a column in the middle of the open-plan office. ‘About half-six or seven-ish, I’d say.’

Lockyer stood and pushed past the young DC. ‘Has anyone heard from DS Bennett since she left the office?’ Several heads turned in his direction. ‘Anyone?’ A room full of shaking heads gave him his answer. ‘Who spoke to her last?’ There was another silence, as Jane’s team looked at each other, shook their heads and then looked back at Lockyer.