Dead Scared (42 page)

He frowned at me. ‘What?’

I told him how and why I’d discovered Thornton’s identity, and about seeing him going into a unit on the nearby industrial estate. When I got to my stake-out of that afternoon, he raised one eyebrow and shook his head.

‘I’ll have them all watched,’ he said. ‘And get this Iestyn Thomas character traced. I’ll also have someone keep an eye on the industrial unit. That could be important.’

‘I could drive out there and …’

His eyebrows lifted. ‘Don’t go anywhere near it. I mean it, Flint. Now promise.’

I’d have promised him anything. ‘Is there any possibility of you telling me what’s going on here?’ I asked.

‘Yes.’ He broke eye contact to look at his watch. ‘But not now. I have to get your phone and laptop to the Yard.’

‘Because …?’

In the chapel, the organ sounded up again. It was taking on a personality of its own for me, that instrument, swanky and loud, like an annoying boy in the school playground. ‘Your cover’s almost certainly been compromised,’ Joesbury said. ‘From what you’ve just told me about that questionnaire, it’s probably been done electronically. Someone could have hacked into your files, maybe
read
the emails you’ve sent to me. They could know exactly who we are and what we know.’

‘Christ, I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be. If you’d been properly briefed, you’d have been on the lookout for that sort of thing. Lacey, don’t worry about it. These people are bloody clever and I may be wrong. Either way, we’ll know tonight.’

‘And if we are blown?’

‘It won’t be the end of the world. We have other people here. And, partly thanks to you, we’re a lot closer than we were.’

‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Stay in college for a few more hours and act normal. Well, as normal as possible for you,’ he said. ‘An added complication is that we think the police are involved in what’s going on here. We don’t know yet whether it’s a couple of bent local coppers or whether it even reaches the Met but you are not to trust anyone but me. Is that understood?’

I nodded. People were leaving the chapel now, the organist playing them on their way.

‘There are roadworks on the M11 so I’ll have to take the long way round, but I’ll be back before midnight all being well and I’ll call you. Do you know a hotel called the Varsity?’

Another nod. ‘I think so. Just round the corner, small, concrete place. Looks very trendy.’

‘That’s where I’m staying,’ he said. ‘I’ll text you with a room number when I’m back.’

One of the porters left the lodge and crossed the court towards us, nodding to a few members of the departing congregation as he did so. As I watched him approach, the choir left the chapel. They were mostly boys, some of them barely in their teens, with black robes and bright-red collars. Red and black tassels on their funny, flat little hats.

‘You on your way out, sir?’ the porter asked Joesbury. It was George.

‘Yes thanks,’ Joesbury replied, before turning back to me and lowering his voice. ‘One more thing,’ he said. ‘About Bell.’

I’d been so caught up in the sheer joy of being on good terms with
Joesbury
again that for a second I thought he was talking about a large bronze thing that went ding-dong. ‘If he’s in the clear when this is all over, I’m fine with it,’ he said. ‘He seems like a nice bloke. Just stay away from him and keep your eye on the case for a bit longer, OK?’

Suddenly there was a large and heavy lump where my tongue used to be.

‘I’m looking forward to finding out exactly what this case is,’ I said, because I had to say something and what sprang to mind didn’t seem appropriate somehow.

Joesbury put a hand behind my head in a brotherly gesture that made me want to hit him. Or weep. ‘Sweetheart,’ he said. ‘When you do, you’ll wish you hadn’t.’

He got into his car, George opened the gates and he drove away.

Cambridge, five year earlier

‘
YOU JOINING US
tonight, boss?’

The man sitting behind the desk shook his head. ‘Got a college reunion.’ He nodded his head towards the screen in front of him. ‘Have you seen this, Stacey?’

Stacey, a slim blonde in her early thirties, who’d had a secret crush on her new boss for several months now, was glad of the opportunity to walk to the other side of the desk and lean over it. This close, she could smell his cologne and the warm cotton of his shirt. See the gleam of his hair
.

‘
Good Lord, is that real?’ The image on the screen, for a second, distracted her even from the fantasy of pressing her face against that broad shoulder, breathing in the male scent more deeply
.

‘
Must be,’ he replied. ‘Her parents are kicking up merry hell
.’

‘
That was here, wasn’t it? She was a student at the university
.’

The video clip was just four minutes thirty-six seconds long. It showed a young woman, hanging by the neck from a tree. Her legs kicked furiously, her fingers seemed to be trying to rip her neck apart, they worked so frantically at the noose around it. The expression on her face was hard for Stacey to look at
.

‘
I’m surprised YouTube haven’t taken it off,’ she said. The clip reached the end. To her surprise, her boss started it again
.

‘
They will,’ he said, ‘any day now. We’re among the last to see it
.’

Stacey looked at the viewing figure in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. ‘Last of nearly a million,’ she said. ‘People are sick.’ She moved away, back round the front of the desk. She was wearing her tightest skirt but his eyes didn’t follow her
.

‘
That’s for sure,’ the boss said. ‘Have a good time, Stace
.’

It was her cue to leave. To stay any longer would look obvious. She’d reached the door when her boss spoke again
.

‘
Just imagine,’ he said, but when she looked back he was still staring at the screen and she got the impression he was talking to himself now. That maybe he had even forgotten she was there. ‘If every one of those punters paid a pound for the privilege
.’

As Stacey closed the door, she thought she might, at last, be getting over her childish crush
.

SPIKE-STRIPS, ALSO KNOWN
as stop sticks and stingers, are used by traffic police the world over to bring high-speed car chases to an end. Typically constructed of metal teeth, between an inch and a half and three inches long and fixed to a fold-up metal frame, spike-strips are unfolded widthways across a road directly in front of a speeding car. They work by puncturing the vehicle’s tyres and, used properly, bring speeding vehicles to a rapid halt whilst causing minimal damage to both people and property.

Usually, the spikes are hollow, rather than solid, and once embedded in tyres will deflate them slowly. The vehicle will be able to travel a short distance before the tyres are completely flat but the possibility of an accident is greatly reduced. Solid spikes, on the other hand, cause multiple tyre blowouts that invariably lead to trouble.

DI Mark Joesbury was a good driver. Police officers are trained to drive quickly and confidently, with maximum levels of concentration. His aptitude behind a wheel had been spotted whilst he was still a cadet and he’d been on several advanced driving courses, including one on evasive techniques.

In daylight, he might have seen the home-made spike-strip laid across the A10 just before he reached it. Had he done so, he would have stood as good a chance of being able to avoid it as just about
any
other driver on the UK’s roads. In the dark, driving at speed, and with a lot on his mind, it wasn’t going to happen.

His BMW hit the nail-embedded steel pipe at just over sixty miles per hour. All four tyres exploded with a sound like gunshots. The BMW hit the crash barrier, broke through it, left the highway and careered down a wooded bank. It came to rest on its roof. The last thought in Mark Joesbury’s head was that he hadn’t passed on any of the information Lacey had shared with him.

I got back to find Tox working out ridiculously complicated equations as heavy metal rocked everything in the room that wasn’t nailed firmly down. She grinned at me, mouthed something and then turned down the volume.

‘I am so coming to your place for the Easter break,’ she announced.

‘I’ll look forward to that,’ I replied, wondering if Joesbury could conjure up a house in Shropshire and a plump, middle-class lady in her fifties to be our mother.

Tox grinned at me. ‘Do you mind Guns N’ Roses?’ she asked.

‘Louder the better,’ I replied and, when she took me at my word, went into my room to read and wait.

As the rattle and crash of the accident faded away into the night, two hooded figures emerged from the trees. One of them picked up what was left of the spike-strip and pulled it to the side of the road. The other climbed the broken crash barrier and made his way down the bank. As he reached the vehicle, his companion joined him.

The man inside was suspended upside down by his seat belt. His head was twisted at an angle that looked unnatural.

‘Is he dead?’ asked the first man.

‘Don’t know,’ replied the second. ‘Looks it.’

‘Let’s get the stuff.’

They’d brought a crowbar with them to force open the boot. It wasn’t needed. The crash had disabled the lock and the boot hatch was open. Joesbury’s bag was three yards further down the slope. In it, they found the laptop and mobile phone that Joesbury had taken from Lacey less than half an hour earlier. From the main body of the
car
they took his own mobile. They also found a jacket with a wallet inside and took that too. Then they stood back to survey the scene.

‘Torch it?’ suggested the first man.

The second shook his head. ‘Too obvious,’ he said. ‘They’d find the match. And he looks dead to me. Come on.’

They turned and made their way back up the slope. At the sound of another car they ducked low. It carried on, having no idea of the devastation just a few yards away.

‘They’d find a match?’ said the first man. ‘You’re kidding me. Won’t it just burn up?’

‘Nope. Match heads contain silica. Very tough compound.’

‘You learn something new every day.’

The two men crossed the road and made their way through the trees to a farm track where they’d left their own vehicle. They climbed inside and drove away. Since they’d left the ruined BMW, neither had looked back.

Nine o’clock arrived and Tox went off to find her boyfriend. Nine thirty followed and I’d heard nothing from Joesbury. My heartbeat went into overdrive at nine forty-five when there was a knock on the door. I shot across the room to open it. Nick Bell stood in the doorway. ‘Hi,’ he said.

‘What’s wrong?’ I asked him. I’d never seen him look so serious.

He put a hand on my shoulder. ‘Can I come in?’ he asked.

I didn’t want Nick anywhere near me but I had a sense something had happened. I stepped back and let him come inside. He came close and looked down at me, as though he wanted to kiss me but wasn’t quite sure about himself.

‘I’m afraid I’ve got bad news,’ he said.