Safe House (27 page)

After swallowing a couple of pills, I went into my bedroom and put on my gym clothes – a pair of grey sweat pants, white sports socks and white trainers. Normally I would have worn an old T-shirt, too, but my shoulder injury wouldn’t allow it. I settled for ducking my head under my sling, then feeding my good arm through one sleeve of a hooded top and leaving my bad arm under the sweater so that the left sleeve hung uselessly at my side.

I searched around in the bottom of my wardrobe for my blue sports holdall. My dirty football kit was inside. It smelled bluntly of dried sweat and aged mud. Rocky came over from the corner of the room to sniff it. He didn’t seem impressed. I removed my kit and my spattered boots, bulking out the holdall with a couple of clean towels. Then I collected together a few other items and ducked down to Rocky. I freed the two keys from his collar and patted his head. The key marked
NSC
had a number on the reverse, just as I’d said. The number was 36.

When I stepped outside I found that Shimmin was huddled with my father on the lawn by the side of the conservatory. Shimmin’s left palm was open and he was stabbing it with the fingers of his right hand. Dad was nodding along, like he was agreeing with each of Shimmin’s points in turn. He didn’t seem to have any points of his own to raise. He was the listener. Shimmin was the talker.

I climbed into the cab of my van and tossed my holdall on to the passenger bench. I fired the engine and drove away in the direction of Douglas with Shimmin and Dad watching me in my mirrors.

There was a lot I hadn’t told Shimmin. I hadn’t told him about Erik Zeeger and Anderson. About the meeting in Erik’s jet and the likelihood of his men having been killed up at the plantation. About how they’d been hiding Lena and their reasons for doing so – both the ones they’d mentioned, and the ones they hadn’t. About the environmental campaigner who’d been killed. About the break-in to my home. And, most important of all, about the key Lena had given me.

Shimmin had been right about one thing, at least. The situation was complicated and I didn’t know who I could trust. I’d trusted my parents, but they’d shielded me from the truth about Laura’s life. I’d trusted Rebecca, but I had a feeling she knew more than she was letting on and I was still a little suspicious of her reasons for helping me. That was why I’d told her about the locker key – to gauge her reaction to the news and to see how much it interested her. It was also why I’d lied about the keys having been stolen along with my laptop.

And I wasn’t prepared to trust Shimmin just yet. I couldn’t tell if he had any real desire to get to the bottom of things, or if he just wanted to bury the loose ends as neatly as possible. The stakes were too high. The key could have the potential to unlock the entire mystery. Lena had entrusted it to me, and my sister had entrusted me to Lena. I wasn’t about to hand the key to anyone else. I wasn’t about to let go of it just yet.

*

Menser was slouched in the front seat of his car, parked along the street from the driveway of the Hales’ care home. It was a position he’d been in before, some weeks ago now, and not one he’d expected to find himself repeating. Things would have been a lot easier if he’d seen the brother back then. If only he’d known what he looked like, he would have recognised him when he appeared on the surveillance footage up at the cottage. He could have eliminated the threat before it had an opportunity to develop.

Chance. Coincidence. Menser didn’t believe in either of them. The brother was involved for a reason. Same thing with the private detective. The two of them were a complication he couldn’t afford. One he might have to eradicate. But not until he’d discovered what it was they were up to. Not until he understood what Laura Hale had hoped to achieve.

The windows were fully down on either side of him, letting in the damp morning air, but his eyelids flickered and his head lolled. He thought about stepping out of the car, but it was too risky. It was only an hour since he’d seen the male police detective arrive. At first he’d been alarmed, but then he’d calmed himself and considered what it could mean. It seemed to Menser that there were a couple of possibilities. One: the detective was there for a routine chat with the brother or his parents, something connected to the brother’s bike accident or Laura’s death. Two: the murder of the detective’s colleague had been discovered and the brother was being interviewed as a possible suspect.

On balance, Menser felt that the first scenario was more likely. It was just a few hours since the policewoman had been killed. The job had gone smoothly, with very little noise other than the sound of the woman and Clarke tumbling down the stairs together. Menser doubted it had been enough to alert a neighbour and the policewoman had told him that she was on a period of temporary leave, which meant she wouldn’t have been missed at work. And besides, if the bodies had been found and the brother was a suspect, the male detective wouldn’t have come on his own.

Menser relaxed, but only by a fraction. If experience had taught him anything, it was always to assume the worst. His superior was built the same way. That was why Menser had been ordered to dispose of Clarke. Odds were, Clarke was just a rookie making mistakes and bad decisions. But on an operation as sensitive as this one, mistakes couldn’t be tolerated – no matter how innocent they might appear.

Menser rotated the ignition key a quarter-turn and set the fans to
Max
, directing cool air towards his face. He clicked on the radio and tuned into a local station, hoping for a news bulletin. He doubted there’d be anything on the incident in Laxey just yet. Truth was, he’d come to enjoy the local news during his time on the island. Most of it was trivial, but that was a novelty he appreciated.

This time, though, his listening was interrupted. The snub nose of a white van emerged from the end of the driveway. The brother was behind the wheel. He was alone. He turned left and sped off downhill. Menser waited for a passing bus to thunder by him before pulling out from the kerb and setting off in pursuit.

*

Further back along the road, Anderson watched events unfold through the tinted glass of his windscreen. He saw Rob Hale drive away in his work van. He saw the balding man in the blue saloon pull out from the kerb. Anderson waited until the saloon had disappeared around the bend before nudging Lukas awake and accelerating after them.

*

The National Sports Centre is a glass and steel complex with a curving metal roof shaped like a wave. There’s a freeform swimming pool, with giant slides spiralling into the vaulted roof space above, and two lap pools with stadium seating alongside. There are a couple of sports halls, a lawn bowling complex, a squash centre and a well-equipped gym. I knew of at least three changing rooms, so there were a lot of possible locations for locker 36.

The main entrance to the sports centre has a revolving glass door and a reception area that overlooks the swimming pools on one side and a sports hall on the other. Outside the door are three car parks with spaces for a couple of hundred vehicles.

I didn’t plan on using the main entrance. I hadn’t spoken to Rebecca since she’d left my place the previous night and I had no idea what her movements were likely to be. But I knew how good she was. I’d seen her in action and I’d gained some insight into the way her mind worked. She believed the locker key had been stolen from my home. Chances were she’d assume that whoever had stolen it would come to the sports centre to try and access the locker. Therefore she might be watching. And if she saw me going inside, she was guaranteed to follow.

So I parked around back, in a distant car park provided for the outdoor training facilities. There was a red oval running track with painted white lines, an athletics field and a bank of tiered stadium seating. The entire area was deserted.

I carried my holdall across the running track and the grassy field. The field was damp from the rain that had fallen during the night. The ground made a boggy squelching noise as I marched over it and blades of wet grass adhered to the toes of my trainers. I crossed the far side of the running track and the rubbery surface seemed to spring and flex under my weight. It was greasy from the rain. A set of metal railings circled the outside of the track at waist height. I clambered over them and approached the rear of the sports centre.

There were several doors around the building. Most of them were fire exits. Good for getting out in an emergency. Not so good for getting in. But there was also an unmanned back entrance connecting the sports centre to the track and field facilities. A card reader was fitted to the side of the door. I pulled my wallet out of the pocket of my jogging trousers and removed my NSC membership card with my thumb. There was a magnetic strip on the back. I swiped the card through the reader and the door clunked and dropped on its hinges. I swung it back by the handle and stepped inside.

*

Menser followed the brother’s van until he indicated and pulled off the road into a small car park that backed on to an athletics field. He drove on and parked in a lay-by, then hustled out of his car and paced back towards the brother’s van. By the time he reached it, the brother was hurrying across the muddy field towards a large brick building with a sculpted metal roof. He had a gym holdall in his hand.

Menser waited until the brother had entered the building. Then he followed.

He didn’t notice the four-wheel-drive vehicle with the darkened glass that eased into the car park behind him.

Chapter Forty

The rear entrance to the sports centre was silent. Not many people came in this way. The gym was on my right. Staff facilities on my left. Another pair of doors ahead. I passed through them and climbed a set of stairs and approached the reception counter.

The revolving doors set into the wall of glass at the front of the building were twenty feet away. If Rebecca was watching from a favourable angle, it was possible she could see me. Nothing I could do about that.

There was no queue at reception and the woman on duty barely looked at me as I handed over my membership card and asked to use the swimming pool. She didn’t even query my sling.

I pushed through the metal turnstile to the side of the counter, then through a glass door with a rubber seal. The rubber was there to keep the heat trapped inside. The heat was instant. It bathed my face and swamped my lungs, like inhaling steam. I headed downstairs to the changing areas. I could smell chlorine and the cleaning fluid that had been used to mop the tiled floors and the mixed odours of countless shampoos and shower gels and deodorants. The air was humid and moist against my skin.

The changing facilities were unisex. Stilted cubicles had been installed around the perimeter of the space and in rows through the middle. Facing each row of cubicles was a row of lockers. The lockers and the cubicles were the same height. A little taller than me. They were the same shade of yellow. There were maybe eighty cubicles. There were perhaps two hundred lockers. The lockers had been designed so that there were three in each vertical drop. The top and middle lockers were the same size. The bottom locker was larger.

I walked past a bank of mirrors fitted above a long shelf that was equipped with a set of tethered hairdryers. There were communal showers on my left and a woman in a one-piece swimsuit was rinsing shampoo from her hair. I passed the first row of cubicles. Turned into the first row of lockers. I found a staff member there. A young girl with bleached blonde hair and long legs. She was wearing a bright yellow T-shirt and blue shorts, with flip-flops on her feet. She was searching the changing cubicles. Throwing back doors. Checking for lost property or abandoned towels. I waited until she was finished before I approached locker number 36.

It was a bottom-row locker. As tall as my thighs. Capable of holding a lot of things. All manner of items.

But it wasn’t my locker.

There was already a key in the lock, connected to a green plastic wrist strap. The door was ajar. The locker was empty. I crouched down and checked it just to be sure. Bare metal interior.

Definitely not my locker.

I turned and walked back through the changing area. Back up the stairs. Back through the door with the rubber suction seal.

The reception area was a little busier. The woman at the counter was talking on the phone and a bald-headed man in a dark roll-neck sweater and sports jacket was standing across the way. His hands were clasped behind his back and he was reading the information that had been pinned to a notice board.

I headed down the stairs I’d originally come in by, then turned left into a long corridor with grey, hard-wearing carpet. I could see the artificial turf of the indoor bowling green at the far end. On my immediate left was the entrance to the sports hall. Just along the corridor on my right were two changing rooms. One for men. One for women. Lining the walls on either side of me were row upon row of green metal lockers.

I found locker 36. It was down by my knees again, the same set-up as before. The door was closed. No key in the lock. I set my bag on the floor and crouched alongside it. Checked both ways along the corridor. I took the key from my pocket and lined it up with the slot. It wouldn’t fit. I turned it upside down. Turned it back again. No matter what I did, it wasn’t the right key. It wouldn’t open the lock.

Definitely not my locker.

I lifted the key before my eyes. Turned it in my hand. There was no telling how long it had been in Lena’s possession. According to Erik and Anderson, Lena hadn’t been outside the cottage for almost two months before she’d met me. The theory Rebecca had been developing was that Laura had given Lena the key. I could see the logic in the idea. I’d bought into it myself, not least because I knew Laura had often come to the sports centre when she was back on the island. Laura had died just over three weeks ago. So Lena must have had the key for a minimum of three weeks and a maximum of two months.