The Dead Tracks (30 page)

    'What
about Charlie Bryant?' Phillips asked, disrupting my train of thought.

    'He's
connected to her disappearance somehow,, but I haven't figured out how or why.
I'd suggest, though, that Whoever killed him probably took Megan.'

    'Why
kill him?'

    'Like
I say, I haven't figured that out yet.'

    'You
must have a hunch.'

    'Maybe
he witnessed something he shouldn't have.'

    'Like
what?'

    I
frowned. You want me to list a few fantasy theories? Or do you just want to
stick to the facts? No witnesses. No CCTV. No accounts that Megan was
particularly unhappy or depressed. No sign her grades were dropping at school.
As I'm sure your colleague DCI Hart has already told you, this is a complex
case.' I paused.
Hart.
He was supposed to be the lead on the Carver
investigation. So where was he? I looked at Phillips. 'Shouldn't Hart be taking
this interview? He was heading up the Carver disappearance, wasn't he?'

    Phillips
nodded. 'Chief Inspector Hart is busy elsewhere.'

    'I
saw him earlier.'

    'He
was checking in.'

    Now
it was my turn to look suspicious. 'The biggest unsolved of the last twelve
months and he doesn’t want a piece of it?'

    Phillips
sighed. 'If you must know, David, DCI Hart is currently taking a long, hard
look around your house.'

    I
frowned, 'Why?'

    Phillips
ignored me and spun the folder around, so it was facing me. He slowly opened it
up. Inside were five photographs, face down, one on top of the other.

    'Why
do you think?' he asked.

    He
flipped the top picture over. Crime-scene photography. It was a picture of the
doll I'd found at the youth club, sitting on my living-room table, just as I'd
left it. He turned the next one over. The photograph I'd discovered inside it —
the woman's shoulders and neck — in a transparent evidence sleeve.

    'Those
were left for me.'

    'Where?'

    'In
my front garden,' I lied.

    'By
whom?'

    I looked
at him. 'I don't know.' 'When?'

    'I
don't know.'

    'Do
you know where the doll came from?'

    'No.'

    'Do
you know who the female in the picture is?'

    'No.'

    He
leaned back in his seat. 'There's a lot you don't know.'

    'Would
you rather I made up an answer?'

    Phillips
shook his head. 'No. No, I don't want that, David. But let me remind you:
you're in trouble here.'

    'Because
some nut left a doll on my lawn?'

    He
studied me for a moment, then looked down at the rest of the photographs. A
couple of fingers tapped the table. He started playing with his wedding band.
Turning it. Turning it. 'Do you know what the number two signifies on that
photograph?' Phillips asked, placing a fingertip on the scrawled two in the
corner of the picture of the woman.

    'No.'

    'I
think you do.'

    He
slid a finger under the third photograph and turned it over. It was another
picture of a photograph, this one bagged as evidence, sitting on the kitchen
counter in my house. It had been taken in the same location as the previous
picture of the woman's neck. Same subdued light. Taken either seconds before,
or seconds after. In the corner was the number one, written in exactly the same
way. And looking out was a woman I didn't recognize. Not Megan, but not
dissimilar to her. Blonde hair, tied up behind her head. Blue eyes open, but
slightly glazed. She wasn't dead, but it looked like she might be drugged. She
was pretty, but her skin was grimy and it looked like there might be a faded
bruise to the side of her right eye.

    'Who's
that?' I asked.

    'You
don't know?'

    'No.'

    'You
didn't take this?'

    'No.'

    Phillips
flipped over the fourth photograph. It was a picture of Derryn's shoebox — the one
I'd seen a crime- scene tech leaving with — taken from above, bathed in the
white of a flashlight. It was full of her stuff: photographs of us, photographs
of her, some jewellery, a notebook. On top, right in the centre of the box, was
the photo of the woman Phillips had just shown me; in situ. Dirty, drugged
face. Blonde hair. Bruise.

    They'd
found it in the shoebox.

    'That's
not where it was,' I said.

    'That's
where we found it.'

    'I've
never even seen that —'

    'We
found that photograph
in
the shoebox
in
your cupboard
at
your home,' Phillips said. 'This woman…' He looked from me to Davidson. 'We
believe you abducted and tortured her.'

    'You've
got to be kidding me.'

    'No,
David,' he said. 'I'm deadly serious.'

    'I
don't even
know
her. I've never seen this woman in my fucking life. I
don't know who she is, or how her picture got into that shoebox, but it's
nothing —'

    A
blink of a memory formed in my head. The night I got back from Jill's at four
o'clock in the morning. I'd forgotten all about it, but now it was coming back
to me. The rubbish bin at the front of the house had been tipped over, and the
bin liners had spilt across the pathway. And the porch had been left slightly
open.

    'Somebody
broke into my house,' I said quietly, almost to myself.

    'David—'

    'Somebody
broke into my house.'

    Who?'

    'I
don't know. I was at a friend's. When I got back it was the early hours of the
morning and there were bin liners all across the path, and the door to my porch
had been left open. I didn't leave it open that night.'

    'Did
you report it?'

    'No.'

    'Why
not?'

    'I
didn't think about it.'

    'Or
you just lied to us again,' Davidson offered.

    'Why
would I lie?'

    'I
don't know,' he replied. Why
would
you?'

    'I'm
not lying.'

    'You're
lying,' Phillips said.

    I
stopped. Looked at him. It was more definitive coming from Phillips, more of a
statement than if it had come from Davidson. Phillips had played everything out
on an even keel. No posturing. No promises. No showboating. Now he was accusing
me of lying in a police interview.

    'I'm
not lying,' I repeated.

    Phillips
watched me for a moment, and something flickered in his eyes; maybe a little
disappointment, as if he'd expected more from me.

    Then
he flipped the final photograph over.

    It
was a picture taken in my kitchen. An evidence marker had been placed on the
floor at the base of some varnished wooden panels that ran for about six feet under
one of the counters. The very top one had come away on the right side. I'd
noticed it a couple of nights before while making myself dinner and had vowed
to reattach it, but then forgotten. In the space behind the panel there was a
nail in the cavity wall.

    And
something was hanging from it.

    I
pulled the photograph towards me. It was a piece of white clothing, the cotton
speckled with blood.

    'What's
that?'

    'That,'
Phillips said, thumping a finger against the picture, 'is what Megan was wearing
the day she disappeared.'

    The first
thing I thought about was how far away Liz would be now. There were no clocks
inside the interview room, and though Phillips wore a watch, it was hidden
beneath his shirt cuffs. It was maybe an hour since I'd called her. That would
put her somewhere north of Oxford if she'd left the moment I put the phone
down. I looked between Phillips and Davidson and considered asking for the free
legal advice I was entitled to. It wouldn't stop the interview altogether if
they thought Megan was alive somewhere and in immediate danger, but it would
break the two of them up and complicate the interrogation. By the time they
were back on track, Liz would be that bit closer.

    'You
going to deny you put it there?' Phillips asked.

    I
nodded. 'Yes.'

    You
suggesting someone's setting you up?'

    I
nodded again. 'Yes.'

    Davidson
shook his head. 'This is bollocks. You know where Megan Carver is. You've got
her clothes in the walls of your fucking
house.
Where is she?'

    I
looked at him. 'Think about it. Why would I take on her case if I'd abducted
her? Why would I risk the exposure? Someone's trying to put this on me. Whoever
it is broke into my house and planted all this shit for you to find.'

    'You're
just digging yourself in deeper here, David,' Phillips said.

    'I'm
not digging myself in anywhere. Someone thinks I've got too close to the truth,
and now they're trying to screw me to the wall.'

    'Got
too close?' he replied. 'But earlier on you said you hadn't found anything more
than we did. Are you saying that's not the case?'

    He
tilted his head a little, like I'd just slipped up.

    'No,'
I said, and began to weave another lie: 'I'm saying I may have inadvertently
hit on something I haven't managed to figure out yet - or drifted too close to
him somehow.'

    'Him?
Who are we talking about here?'

    I
sighed. 'Everyone in this room knows it's a man.'

    Yeah,'
Davidson said. You.'

    'No,'
I said. 'Not me. But every stat on the planet will tell you this is a man. It's
not a leap of faith.'

    Davidson
shook his head again.

    'How
did you even know to look in my house in the first place?' I asked him. 'How
did you know this stuff was there? Six months along the line, you suddenly
decide I look good for this? No way would a judge sign off on that.'

    'Maybe
it's the fact that the first time we met you you're stumbling out of a house
that ain't yours with two dead bodies inside,' Davidson said, leaning in to me.
'And to up the ante, one of them's just a kid and, four inches from his body,
we find a piece of plastic - which turns out to be from
that'
He punched
a finger at the photograph of the doll. 'Oh, and you know who that doll belongs
to, David?'

    I
didn't - but his question had just told me.

    'Megan,'
Phillips said.

    It was
Megan's doll.
Shit.
I was struggling to keep my head above water.

    'The
police investigation is over,' I said, trying to maintain the control in my
voice. 'You know it, I know it. If you had anything on Megan's whereabouts, any
leads, I wouldn't have been hired by the Carvers. Whoever it is that's doing
this knows you aren't a threat to him any more.'

    'And
what?' Davidson smirked. You are?'

    'Why
else would he leave this stuff in my house? He's setting me up. I've hit on
something somewhere, and he's trying to protect himself.'

    'So
what have you hit on?' Phillips asked.

    'I
told
you. I don't know.'

    'You
don't know because you won't tell us?' he fired back. 'Or you don't know
because you've just made up a load of shite and are hoping we'll buy it?'

    'You
want alibis?'

    'Sure,
why not?' he said, his voice simmering. 'Give us your alibi for the day Megan
disappeared. And why not deliver a few witnesses too while you're at it? One
for when the doll
magically
turns up on your lawn. And another who can
back up your story of someone breaking into your house, taking out a board in
the kitchen, hammering a nail into the wall and placing an item of Megan's
clothes on there.' He shook his head. You better start dancing with us, David.'